WIESENTHAL CENTER HARSHLY CRITICIZES REMARKS IN BUENOS AIRES BY CROATIAN PRESIDENT EXPRESSING PRIDE IN CROATIAN IMMIGRANTS TO ARGENTINA, AMONG THEM NOTORIOUS WAR CRIMINALS

Jerusalem-The Simon Wiesenthal Center today harshly criticized public remarks made earlier this week in Buenos Aires by visiting Croatian President KolindaGrobarKitarović who expressed pride in "all the generations of Croats who arrived in Argentina," despite the fact that among these immigrants were numerous notorious Ustasha (Croatian fascist) war criminals.

In a letter sent today to the President by the Center's chief Nazi-hunter and director of Eastern European Affairs Dr. EfraimZuroff, the names of several of the most prominent of these war criminals, among them the notorious Croatian head of state during World War II Ante Pavelić, head of the Ustasha secret police Eugen Dido Kvaternik, and Jasenovać commander DinkoSakić were specifically mentioned.
According to research by Argentinian journalist UkiGoni in his monumental study of the escape of Nazi war criminals to Argentina, The Real Odessa; Smuggling the Nazis to Peron's Argentina (Granta Books, 2002), estimates that the number of Ustasha criminals who fled to Argentina was at least 100, among them numerous leading members of the Ustasha regime.
According to Zuroff:
"President Grabar-Kitarović's remarks constitute a blanket whitewash of some of the worst criminals of World War II. The only question is whether her statement stemmed from admiration for these murderous Ustasha or ignorance of their postwar escape."

For additional information please contact the Israel Office of the Wiesenthal Center:

Jerusalem-The Simon Wiesenthal Center today urged the Polish authorities to reconsider the highly-controversial law regarding Holocaust history which was passed in the Sejm (Polish parliament) this past Friday. In a statement issued here today by its Associate Dean Rabbi Abraham Cooper and its Director of Eastern European Affairs Holocaust historian Dr. EfraimZuroff, the Center harshly criticized the provision of the bill which makes any mention of Polish complicity in Holocaust crimes a criminal offense, while accepting the historically-accurate demand to refrain from use of the term "Polish death camps."

According to Cooper and Zuroff:
"While we agree that the use of the term 'Polish death camps' is a dangerous and harmful distortion of the history of the Holocaust, we cannot accept any attempt to whitewash the crimes committed in Poland, or in any other country, against Jews during the Holocaust. While the Polish state no longer existed, many thousands of individual Poles either murdered Jews or informed on them to the Nazis, a phenomenon which has been extensively documented by reputable Polish historians. In addition, there were cases in which Jews seeking to escape the Nazis were murdered by members of the ArmiaKrajowa, the nationalist underground which was the military arm of the Polish government-in-exile in London. Any attempt to whitewash such crimes is totally unacceptable and an unbearable insult to the victims of the Nazis."

For additional information please contact the Israel Office of the Wiesenthal Center:

WIESENTHAL CENTERWELCOMES INDICTMENT IN GERMANY OF TWO STUTTHOF GUARDS; CONTINUES TO SEEK SURVIVORS OF THE CAMP

Jerusalem-The Simon Wiesenthal Center today welcomed the indictment yesterday in Muenster, Germany of two guards from the Stutthof concentration camp near Gdansk, Poland. In a statement issued by its chief Nazi-hunter Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Center noted the importance of the final efforts to bring Holocaust perpetrators to justice and congratulated the German prosecutors on their efforts in the case.

According to Zuroff:
“During the past four months, the Wiesenthal Center has located eighteen survivors of Stutthof,most of whom currently live in Israel,to assist the preparations for the trial of the Stutthof guards. Other survivors were located in the United States and Sweden. These survivors were primarily Jews from Lithuanian ghettoes and Hungarian Jews who had initially been deported to Auschwitz. Approximately 110,000 Jews and non-Jews were deported to Stutthof and about 85,000 were murdered there. In 1943 a gas chamber was built there to facilitate the last stages of the Final Solution.
"We urge anyone with information regarding Stutthof survivors to contact us as soon as possible."

For additional information please contact the Israel Office of the Wiesenthal Center:

Jerusalem-The Simon Wiesenthal Center today issued a statement harshly condemning military exercises being held by the Lithuanian Army at the Seventh Fort in Kaunas (Kovno), the site of the mass murder of several thousand Jews in July 1941.

In a statement issued here by its director of Eastern European Affairs, Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Center labelled the decision to conduct military training at the site "grossly insensitive," and called upon the army to immediately halt the exercises at the mass murder site and move them to an alternate venue.
According to Zuroff:
"The original sin in this regard was the horrendous mistake of privatizing the mass murder site by the government in 2009 over the objections of the Lithuanian Jewish community. Given the fact that the area where the victims are buried is not fenced off, nor is it appropriately marked, there is a danger of the desecration of the dead. We urge the Lithuanian authorities to acknowledge their lack of sensitivity to these Holocaust victims and immediately move the military exercises elsewhere."

For additional information please contact the Israel Office of the Wiesenthal Center:

In a letter of support sent today to Boris Fuchsmann, President of the Jewish Confederation of Ukraine, the Center expressed its strong opposition to the glorification of the two Ukrainian nationalist leaders whose men actively participated in the mass murder of Jews during the initial months following the Nazi occupation of the Soviet Union.

According to Zuroff's letter:
"Thank you for alerting us to the impending decision of the Kiev Municipal Council regarding the scandalous initiative to name city streets in honor of Ukrainian nationalists Stefan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych, whose men assisted the forces of Nazi Germany following the invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 and actively participated in the mass murder of Jews in Lviv and other locations.

We absolutely oppose and condemn any attempt to turn murderers in the service of the Nazis into Ukrainian heroes. Such a policy is not only an insult to the memory of their innocent victims, but an affront to human dignity and historical truth."

For additional information please contact the Israel Office of the Wiesenthal Center:

WIESENTHAL CENTERSEEKS SURVIVORS FROM STUTTHOF CONCENTRATION CAMP AND FIRST-DEGREE RELATIVES OF VICTIMS OF THE CAMP

Jerusalem-The Simon Wiesenthal Center today issued a call for survivors of the Stutthof concentration camp near Gdansk (Poland), as well as first-degree relatives (child or sibling) of victims of the camp, to consider serving as co-plaintiffs in trials of Stutthof guards which will hopefully be conducted in Germany in the coming year.

The trial is a result of a change in German prosecution policy, whereby any person who served in a concentration camp with the apparatus for industrialized murder (gas chambers or gas vans) can be convicted for accessory to murder based on service alone, which was not the case until about a decade ago. To date three individuals who served in death camps (Ivan Demjanjuk at Sobibor; Oskar Groening and Reinhold Hanning at Auschwitz) have been thus convicted.
According toDr. Efraim Zuroff, the Center's chief Nazi-hunter:
"At this late date, every trial is extremely important, and the role of co-plaintiffs is of unique significance. We urge all survivors of Stutthof, as well as first-degree relatives of those murdered in the camp,to contact our Jerusalem office (tel. 02.563.1274 / e-mail: swcjerus@netvision.net.il ) to help make the case of the prosecution as effective and convincing as possible."

For additional information please contact the Israel Office of the Wiesenthal Center:

WIESENTHAL CENTERURGES GERMANY TO EXPEDITE NAZI WAR CRIMES TRIALS IN WAKE OF DEATH OF UNPUNISHED CONVICTED AUSCHWITZ GUARD

Jerusalem-The Simon Wiesenthal Center today urged the German judicial authorities to expedite the remaining cases of Nazi war criminals in the wake of the recent death of convicted Auschwitz guard Reinhold Hanning before he could serve his jail sentence. In a statement issued here by its chief Nazi-hunter Dr. EfraimZuroff, the Center emphasized the importance of the implementation of the sentences meted out by German courts in recent years to convicted death camp guards and operatives.

According toZuroff:
"The punishment of convicted Nazi war criminals is an integral and highly significant component of the judicial process. The fact that none of the three death camp guards and operatives convicted in recent years in German courts have served their sentences weakens the impact of these important judicial decisions. We urge the German judicial authorities to find a way to expedite these cases so that those justifiably sentenced to imprisonment do not escape punishment due to bureaucracy and/or misplaced sympathy."

For additional information please contact the Israel Office of the Wiesenthal Center:

WIESENTHAL CENTER REJECTS AS SCANDALOUS THE DECISION BY DANISH PROSECUTION TO PERMANENTLY CLOSE INVESTIGATION OF HOLOCAUST CRIMES BY DANISH SS VOLUNTEERS IN BELARUS

Jerusalem-The Simon Wiesenthal Center today expressed surprise and indignation in response to the decision announced yesterday by Danish judicial authorities to permanently close an investigation of two Danish SS volunteers suspected of war crimes against Jewish inmates in a Nazi concentration camp in Belarus during the years 1942-1943."

In a statement issued today by its chief Nazi-hunter Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Center rejected as "absolutely baseless and scandalous" the reasons presented by Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Mohammad Ahsan for the state's decision to close the case against Helmut Rasbol and Aksel Andersen. The former was initially identified by Danish historians Dennis Larsen and Therkel Straeda in their pioneering study of the Belarus camp En Skole I Vold (A School of Violence), whereas the latter was identified by research initiated by the Wiesenthal Center in the wake of the publication of the book.

According to Zuroff

"Although the Center was specifically informed that, as the agency which originally submitted an official complaint against the two suspects, it could submit an appeal against the decision to close the case, Mr. Ahsan claimed that our submission was illegal and thus irrelevant. In addition, he said that the original decision could not be reversed, since more than two months had passed since it was issued, but in reality the Center's appeal had been submitted before the deadline and it was his own response which arrived much later.

"This decision, like the investigation which gave almost exclusive credence to the recent interviews of the suspects who denied any connection to the camp, totally ignored evidence which clearly proved that the Danish guards had served in the camps and were responsible for discipline during the period from October 1942 to May 1943.

"This scandalous decision is a clear indication of the lack of will of the Danish authorities to pursue such cases. It is unfortunate that Denmark, whose rescue of most of its Jewish community during the Holocaust is a symbol of altruism and heroism, has not seen fit to add a new and modern chapter to that tradition by a more just treatment of the cases of Holocaust crimes by Danish SS volunteers."

For additional information please contact the Israel Office of the Wiesenthal Center:

Belgrade-Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic yesterday awarded a Golden Medal for Merit to Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Simon Wiesenthal Center's chief Nazi-hunter and director of eastern European affairs, as part of the celebrations of Sretenje, the National Day of the Republic of Serbia. The rationale for the award, which was granted to Zuroff for "exceptional achievements," was his "selfless dedication to defending the truth about the suffering of Jews, but also Serbs, Roma and other nations during World War II."

Zuroff was the first of the medal recipients to be called up to the president and among the very few foreigners whose achievements were honored. He is the only Israeli to ever receive this recognition, with the exception of Serbian-born former Justice Minister Yosef (Tommy) Lapid.

WIESENTHAL CENTER FILES A COMPLAINT AGAINST THE DECISION TO STOP THE INVESTIGATIONS OF DANISH SS-VOLUNTEERS HELMUT RASBOL AND AXEL ANDERSEN

Jerusalem– The Simon Wiesenthal Center today filed a complaint with the Danish Director of Public Prosecutions in response to the recent decision by the State Prosecutor for Serious Economic and International Crime to close the investigation against Danish SS volunteers Helmut Rasbol and Axel Andersen on the suspicion of war crimes committed in Bobruisk, Belarus in 1942-43.
In a statement issued here today by its chief Nazi-hunter, Dr. EfraimZuroff, who submitted the original complaint to the Danish police in July 2015, the Center pointed to several issues which cast doubt on the decision to close the case.

According to Zuroff:
"We do not agree with the decision to close the case and will supply the explanations for our complaint, after the Director of Public Prosecutions has an opportunity to review our submission and make his ruling."

Jerusalem – The Simon Wiesenthal Center today welcomed the publication in Lithuania this week of Mūsiškiai; Kelionė Su Priešu(Our People; Journey With an Enemy) by Ruta Vanagaite and the Center's Dr. Efraim Zuroff which deals with the complicity of Lithuanians in Holocaust crimes and the current efforts of the Lithuanian government to hide or minimize the role of Lithuanian collaborators during the Holocaust.

According to Associate Dean Rabbi Abraham Cooper:
"In view of the increased danger posed by Holocaust distortion in Eastern Europe, we hope that publication of Mūsiškiai will be an important milestone in ensuring the accuracy of the historical narrative of the Shoah in Lithuania.
"This book is an unprecedented undertaking, pairing a renowned Lithuanian author Ruta Vanagaite together with the Center’s Nazi Hunter, Efraim Zuroff. With great commitment and integrity, theypresent an accurate description of verypainful historic issues.We hope its publication will mark the beginning of a much more honest treatment of the subject by the Lithuanian authorities."

Jerusalem-In connection with the observance tomorrow of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Simon Wiesenthal Center today issued a list of ten cases of Nazi war criminals slated for possible prosecution in 2016. Compiled by its chief Nazi-hunter, Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the list includes individuals who committed crimes in Poland, Belarus, Lithuania, Ukraine, Greece and Italy in the course of which hundreds of thousands of Jews were murdered.

*1. HelmaKissner – Germany (Poland) – served as a radio operator in the Auschwitz death camp from April to July 1944 – charged with accessory to murder in 260,000 cases.
*2. Reinhold Hanning – Germany (Poland) – served in the Auschwitz death camp from January 1943 until June 1944 – charged with accessory to murder in 170,000 cases.
3. Helmut Oberlander – Canada (Ukraine) – served in Einsatzkommando 10A (part of Einstazgruppe D, which murdered an estimated 23,000 mostly Jewish civilians.
*4. Hubert Zafke – Germany (Poland) – served as a medic in the Auschwitz death camp during the years 1943 and 1944 – charged with accessory to murder in 3,681 cases.
*5. Ernst Tremmel – Germany (Poland) – served in the Auschwitz death camp – charged with accessory to murder in 1,073 cases.
6. Alfred Stark – Germany (Greece) – participated in the September 1943 mass murder of 120Italian officers on the Greek island of Kefalonia.
7. Helmut Rasbol – Denmark (Belarus) – during the years 1942-1943 served as a guard in the Judenlager established by the Nazis in Bobruisk, Belarus, during which almost all the Jewish inmates of the camp were executed or died of the horrible physical conditions.
8. Aksel Andersen – Sweden (Belarus) - during the years 1942-1943 served as a guard in the Judenlager established by the Nazis in Bobruisk, Belarus, during which almost all the Jewish inmates of the camp were executed or died of the horrible physical conditions.
9. Johann Robert Riss – Germany (Italy) – participated in the murder of 184 civilians in Padule di Fucecchio, Italy on August 23, 1944.
10. AlgimantasDailide – Germany (Lithuania) – served in the Saugumas (Lithuanian Security Police) in Vilnius – arrested Jews and Poles who were subsequently executed by the Nazis and Lithuanian collaborators.
*Trial dates already slated in Germany in 2016.
This list is only the tip of the iceberg of individuals who are still alive and can be prosecuted for their service with the forces of the Third Reich and its allies. In this respect, the passage of time in no way diminishes the guilt of the killers, old age should not afford protection to those who committed such heinous crimes, and our obligation to the victims of the Nazis is to make a serious effort to find those who victimized innocent men, women, and children, some of whom were older than the criminals are today.

WIESENTHAL CENTER PRAISES OP-ED IN LRYTAS.LT PORTAL BY VYTAUTAS BRUVERIS CALLING FOR COMPREHENSIVE INVESTIGATIONS INTO SCOPE AND NUMBER OF LITHUANIAN PARTICIPANTS IN HOLOCAUST CRIMES

Taurage, Lithuania – The Simon Wiesenthal Center today praised an op-ed in the popular Lithuanian news portal lrytas.lt by prominent journalist VytautasBruveris calling upon the government to finally undertake a comprehensive investigation of the scope of Lithuanian complicity in Holocaust crimes. In a statement issued here today by its chief Nazi hunter, Dr. EfraimZuroff, who is currently in Lithuania on a research expedition, the Center expressed its appreciation and support for the content of the article and expressed the hope that the government would indeed implement the ideas raised by Bruveris.

According to Zuroff:

"This important article by Bruveris, following a recent op-ed in the same spirit by journalist RimvydasValatka (on July 26 in www.delfi.com), points to growing awareness in the circles of Lithuanian intelligentsia of the necessity to finally fully investigate the role and scope of Lithuanian collaborators in Holocaust crimes. Also of great significance is the call to stop the glorification of Lithuanian freedom fighters who actively participated in the murder of Jews during the Holocaust. These public calls for such an investigation will hopefully mark a positive turning point in the history of Lithuania's dealing with its Holocaust past and, if acted upon, will no doubt significantly help improve Lithuanian-Jewish relations."

WIESENTHAL CENTER WELCOMES CONVICTION OF AUSCHWITZ "ACCOUNTANT" OSCAR GROENING; CALLS UPON GERMAN AUTHORITIES TO EXPEDITE CASES OF DEATH CAMP AND EINSATZGRUPPEN OPERATIVES

Jerusalem-The Simon Wiesenthal Center welcomed the conviction today by a German court in Luneberg of Oscar Groening for his wartime service in the notorious Nazi death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau. In a statement issued here today by its chief Nazi hunter, Israel director Dr. EfraimZuroff, the Center emphasized the importance of the conviction and expressed hope that the ongoing investigations by German judicial officials of Holocaust perpetrators would be expedited to maximize justice while these individuals can still be held accountable for their crimes.
According to Zuroff:
"The well-deserved conviction of Auschwitz 'accountant' Groening will hopefully pave the way for additional prosecutions of individuals who served in death camps and the special mobile killing units (Einsatzgruppen). It is abundantly clear that the window of opportunity to bring Holocaust perpetrators to justice will soon be closed, which makes the expedition of these cases of exceptional urgency. We therefore call upon the German government to make available the necessary resources and upon the judicial officials to give first priority to these cases."

Wiesenthal Center Denounces Attempt by Russian Rodina Party to Join Forces With Western European Neo-Nazis and Fascists

Jerusalem-The Simon Wiesenthal Center today denounced a Russian international conference convened by the Rodina party (the Russian National Patriotic Union) to establish a pan-European movement to lobby for Russia's interests with the participation of West European neo-Nazis and fascists. In a statement issued here by its director of Eastern European Affairs, Dr. EfraimZuroff, the Center harshly criticized the participation of German Udo Voigt of the extreme right National Democratic Party in addition to representatives of Greek Golden Dawn and the founder of the Italian Fascist movement Roberto Fiore, as well as representatives from extreme right-wing parties in Great Britain, Austria, Sweden, Belgium, Denmark and Spain.
According to Zuroff:
"How can Russia, which prides itself on its staunch anti-fascist tradition and its significant role in the defeat in World War II of Nazi Germany, permit such a conference to take place with the participation of some of the worst of Hitler's heirs? Such behavior is the antithesis of the traditional Russian opposition to Nazism and fascism and is an insult to the memory of the Red Army soldiers who sacrificed their lives to defeat the Third Reich."

Jerusalem-The Simon Wiesenthal Center today urged AndriusKupčinskas, the mayor of Kaunas, Lithuania, to cancel the upcoming neo-Nazi march scheduled to take place this coming Monday, February 16, Lithuanian Independence Day, in the center of the city.
In a letter sent today by its chief Nazi-hunter Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Center urged Mayor Kupčinskas to find a legal basis to cancel the march, or at least have it conducted elsewhere under strict limitations against incitement and Holocaust distortion."

According to Zuroff's letter to the mayor:

"As you well know, once again the neo-Nazis and ultranationalists plan to march in the center of Kaunas this coming Monday, February 16 to mark Lithuanian independence day. I think that it should be obvious to you that such a march in which the main slogan is "Lithuania for Lithuanians," and numerous Lithuanian swastikas are shown along with the image of Third Reich supporter JuozasAmbrazevicius who collaborated with the Nazis in the murder of the Jewish residents of Kaunas is hardly an appropriate manner to celebrate Lithuanian independence."

Jerusalem-The Simon Wiesenthal Center today welcomed the decision by the Tartu Art Museum to remove two highly offensive video clips from an exhibition on the Holocaust which opened this past Saturday.
In a statement issued here today by its chief Nazi-hunter, Holocaust historian Dr. EfraimZuroff, the Center commended the decision to remove video clips of naked actors and actresses playing tag in a gas chamber and of a Holocaust survivor renewing his concentration camp tattoo ID number.

According to Zuroff:

"We commend the efforts of the Estonian Jewish community to protest the highlyoffensive aspects of the exhibition in the Tartu Art Museum, which complemented our own efforts to achieve this goal. Unfortunately, the rest of the exhibition is of highly questionable value, but at least the most objectionable elements have been permanently removed. This incident should be a wake-up call for the authorities in Tallinn regarding the attitude towards Holocaust-related issues."

Jerusalem-The Simon Wiesenthal Center today called for the removal of an exhibition which it believes mocks the victims of the Holocaust and insults their memory and which opened yesterday at the Art Museum in Tartu, Estonia.

In a statement issued here today by its chief Nazi-hunter Holocaust historian Dr. EfraimZuroff, the Center expressed a deep sense of outrage and insult in response to images from the exhibition entitled "My Poland: Recalling and Forgetting," which make a mockery of the fate of the Nazis' victims who were gassed to death and the contemporary efforts to commemorate their memory.

According to Zuroff:

"While the exhibition claims to attempt to deal with trauma through humor, the result is a sickening mockery of the mass murder of European Jewry and the important ongoing efforts to commemorate the victims' memory and impart the lessons of the Holocaust. Thus, for example, one of the pieces in the exhibition is a film in which naked actors play tag in what is supposed to represent a gas chamber, a shameful parody of the fate of millions of Jews who were murdered in death camps. Such perverted humor has no place in any country, least of all one in which Holocaust crimes were perpetrated not only by Germans and Austrians, but by local Estonian Nazi collaborators as well."

Wiesenthal CenterProtests Participation of Lithuanian Genocide Center in Yesterday's Holocaust Memorial Day Events at Jewish Community

Jerusalem-The Simon Wiesenthal Center today sent a letter of protest to the Lithuanian Jewish community in response to the participation in yesterday's events to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day of the Lithuanian Genocide Center and a scholar affiliated with that institution who consistently downplays the role of Lithuanians in Holocaust crimes.
In a letter sent to Faina Kukliansky, the president of the Lithuanian Jewish community by chief Nazi-hunter Holocaust historian Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Center emphasized the extremely negative role played by the Genocide Center in recording the history of Lithuanian Jewry, especially during the Holocaust and in particular its systematic efforts to minimize the highly significant role of Lithuanians in Holocaust crimes.
According to Zuroff's letter to Kukliansky:
"Anyone acquainted with the history of that institution [the Genocide Center] is well aware of its very active role in rewriting the accepted and accurate narrative of World War II to the detriment of historical truth. Examples of its harmful activities abound, but suffice it to mention its responsibility for the content of the local Genocide Museum, which included blatantly anti-Semitic exhibits overemphasizing the role of Jews in Communist crimes, while completely ignoring the real genocide, that of European, and especially Lithuanian Jewry, which took place in Lithuania. Only after protests, did the museum devote one small room to the Holocaust, and in a manner unbefitting the scope and nature of that unique tragedy.

To make matters worse, one of the guest speakers was Dr. ArunasBubnys, whose book on the Vilna Ghetto is a good example of Holocaust distortion designed to downplay the role of Lithuanians in the mass murder of Jews and emphasize the questionable behavior of the Jewish police who were operating under coercion in very difficult circumstances. It was Bubnys who publically denied the well-documented violence by Lithuanians against Jews in dozens of communities before the Nazis even arrived, a fact corroborated in numerous survivor testimonies.

The cooperation between the Jewish community and the Genocide Center is a disgrace and a betrayal of the memory of the Jews murdered by Lithuanians.
For years, Dr. Alperovich, your esteemed predecessor, courageously defended the historical truth regarding the Holocaust in Lithuania and the memory of the victims, but that clearly is no longer the case, and the community under your leadership has forfeited its role as custodian and guardian of Shoa memory."

Jerusalem-The Simon Wiesenthal Center today strongly denounced a memorial mass held yesterday in the center of Zagreb to commemorate the demise of Croatian mass murderer Ante Pavelić, who headed the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) during World War II. In a statement issued here today by its chief Nazi hunter, Holocaust historian Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Center emphasized the central role played by Pavelićin launching genocidal programs against Serbs, Jews, and Roma in Croatia during World War II, as well as the systematic persecution and murder of Croatian anti-fascists.

According to Zuroff:
"It is hard to believe that in the center of the capital of a member of the European Union, very close to Zagreb's Jewish community, hundreds of people gathered yesterday to commemorate the memory of one of Europe's biggest mass murderers. Such a ceremony is an insult to the memory of Pavelić's hundreds of thousands of innocent victims. It is also a badge of shame for the Catholic Church, which allowed such a ceremony to take place in the Basilica of the Heart of Christ who, had he been alive during World War II, would have been targeted for annihilation as well.

Wiesenthal Center Submits Names of 80 Youngest Nazi Death Squad Members to
German Authorities in Hopes of Expediting Einsatzgruppen Investigations

Jerusalem–The Simon Wiesenthal Center announced here today that it had submittedto the German ministers of justice (Heiko Maas) and the interior (Thomas de Maiziere) a list of 80 persons (76 men and 4 women) who had served in the notorious Nazi Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing squads), which murdered more than a million Jews by shooting in areas of the Soviet Union during the Holocaust.

In a statement issued here today by its chief Nazi-hunter, Israel director Dr. EfraimZuroff, the Center explained that the suspects in question were the youngest members of the mobile killing squads listed in documents in the Center's possession.

According to Zuroff:

"The individuals whose names we submitted to the German ministers were all born between 1920 and 1924 and constitute the suspects most likely to still be alive and healthy enough to face prosecution. The list was submitted in the hope of encouraging the German judicial authorities to expedite the efforts to bring these killers to justice and to offer the Center's assistance in this important project."

Background: Following the May 2011 conviction in Germany of Sobibor death camp guard Ivan Demjanjuk solely on the basis of his service in the camp, German prosecutors began searching for death camp guards and death squad members, who could now be brought to trial without proof that they had committed a specific crime against a specific victim (as had been the case in Germany for the previous fifty years). During the past year, German prosecutors had announced locating more than fifty death camp guards, but not a single member of a death squad.

Simon Wiesenthal Center: Death of Auschwitz Guard Breyer Should Not Halt or Discourage Ongoing Efforts to Prosecute Holocaust Perpetrators

Jerusalem–The Simon Wiesenthal Center today expressed its regret and frustration in the wake of the death in Philadelphia yesterday of Auschwitz guard Johann Breyer while facing extradition to Germany to stand trial for his service in the notorious death camp.

In a statement issued here today by its chief Nazi hunter, Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Center, which was actively involved in the search for co-plaintiffs in the case, noted the continued importance of bringing death camp guards to justice despite the many years which have passed since the Holocaust.

According to Zuroff:

"The death of a guard who served in the notorious Birkenau death camp shortly before his extradition to stand trial is obviously a source of frustration, but should not halt or discourage the ongoing efforts to prosecute Holocaust perpetrators. The passage of time in no way diminishes the guilt of the murderers and those who assisted them, nor should old age help such persons elude justice. They are the last people on earth who deserve any sympathy, since they had none for their innocent victims, some of whom were even older than they are today."

The Simon Wiesenthal Center fully intends to continue its efforts to help facilitate the attainment of justice for all the victims of the Holocaust.

Jerusalem-The Simon Wiesenthal Center today welcomed the recent announcement by
Germany's leading Nazi war crimes prosecutor Kurt Schrimm that approximately twenty
individuals who served as guards at the Majdanek death camp could face prosecution in the
coming months. In a statement issued here by its chief Nazi hunter, Israel director Dr. Efraim
Zuroff, the Center noted the significant progress being made in Germany during the past
months to maximize efforts to bring death camp guards to justice.

According to Zuroff:

"The conviction of Sobibor SS guard Ivan Demjanjuk in Munich in 2011 has led to a very
welcome and dramatic increase in the number of Holocaust perpetrators being investigated
and recommended for prosecution in Germany. We urge the German authorities to expedite these cases in view of the advanced age of the suspects in order to maximize justice, while it is still possible to do so in many of these cases."

Wiesenthal Center Mourns the Passing Today of Courageous Leader of Lithuanian Jewish
Community

Jerusalem-The Simon Wiesenthal Center issued the following statement in the wake of the passing
last night of Dr. Shimon Alperovich, the former Chairman of the Lithuanian Jewish community.

"It is with great sorrow that we learned of the passing last night of Dr. Shimon Alperovich, the < venerable leader for many years of the Lithuanian Jewish community. Dr. Alperovich displayed great courage and fortitude in leading the renewed Lithuanian Jewish community and fought bravely against the ongoing efforts to minimize local participation in Nazi crimes and the promotion of the canard of equivalency between Nazi and Communist atrocities.

"Just two and a half weeks ago, I visited him in Vilnius together with Prof. Dovid Katz, to update him on our plans to protest the next day against the neo-Nazi march held in the capital, and Dr.

Alperovich gave us his blessing and encouragement.

"On numerous occasions, Dr. Alperovich publically spoke out against Lithuanian Holocaust distortion and, unlike some other Jewish leaders in Eastern Europe, fully supported the Center's "Operation Last Chance" (launched in Lithuania in July 2002) and our efforts to persuade the local authorities to bring unprosecuted Lithuanian Nazi criminals to justice.

"May his memory be a blessing to his family, the Lithuanian Jewish community and Litvaks the world over."

WIESENTHAL CENTER ISRAEL DIRECTOR AMONG LEADERS OF PROTEST AGAINST MARCH OF
LATVIAN SS VETERANS AND HUNDREDS OF SUPPORTERS

Riga, Latvia – The Simon Wiesenthal Center's Israel Director and chief Nazi hunter, Dr. Efraim
Zuroff, was among the leaders of a demonstration held here today by dozens of protesters from
Latvia and abroad against the annual march of Latvian SS veterans and hundreds of their supporters
in the center of the capital. In numerous interviews to the international and local media, Zuroff
explained the Center's opposition to the march, which glorifies those who fought for the victory of
the Third Reich, the most genocidal regime in human history.

According to Zuroff:

1) "Contrary to the claims of the marchers, who present the SS veterans as fighters for Latvian
freedom, the Nazis had absolutely no intention of granting the Baltic countries independence.
2) "Although these units played no role in Holocaust crimes, many of those who served in them
actively participated in the mass murder of Latvian Jewry and of foreign Jews deported to Latvia
prior to their joining the Waffen-SS.
3) "Glorifying such persons is an insult to the memory of the victims of the Holocaust, and a total
distortion of the accurate narrative of World War II.
4) "We welcome the steps taken by the Latvian government against the minister who indicated his
intention to participate in the march."

Vilnius, Lithuania-The Simon Wiesenthal Center's Israel Director, Dr. Efraim Zuroff, today led a protest vigil against
a march of approximately 2,000 neo-Nazis and ultranationalists in the Lithuanian capital to mark the country's
restoration of independence in 1990.

The Center noted that once again the image of Juozas Ambrazevicius-Brazaitis, prime minister of the provisional
Lithuanian government, established in July 1941, which fully supported Nazi Germany and actively participated in
the persecution and murder of Jews, was carried by a group of demonstrators as homage to this high-ranking war
criminal and Nazi collaborator.

According to Zuroff:

"These demonstrators are the spiritual heirs of the numerous Lithuanians who volunteered to actively participate in
the mass murder of Lithuanian Jewry. Their chants of "Lithuania for Lithuanians" ring particularly ominous in the city
once known as the Jerusalem of Lithuania, whose Jewish community was virtually wiped out completely by the Nazis
and their numerous local collaborators."

Wiesenthal Center urges Serbian Authorities to Establish a Memorial Research and
Educational Complex on the Site of the Staro Sajmiste Concentration Camp

Belgrade – The Simon Wiesenthal Center today urged the Serbian authorities to establish a memorial
research and educational complex on the site of the Staro Sajmiste concentration camp in Belgrade. In a
meeting this morning with Serbian Prime Minister Ivica Dacic, the Center's chief Nazi hunter, Israel director
Dr. Efraim Zuroff, asked the Serbian head of state to make available the necessary funds to create a center
to commemorate victims of the Holocaust as well as those of the genocide of Serbs during WWII on the site
of the camp where tens of thousands of innocent civilians were murdered by the Nazis. Staro Sajmiste was
among the places where the Nazis used gas vans to murder innocent civilians, in this case Jewish women
and children from all over Serbia in 1941-42, as well as a group of Zionist pioneers whose boat was stranded
on the Danube, and whose women and children were eventually sent there to be murdered. After the
annihilation of the Jews it was used for prisoners of the partisan war as well as Serbs who would be later
sent for forced labor in Germany and surplus prisoners from the Jasenovac concentration camp.

Prime Minister Dacic also expressed support for the forthcoming launch of Operation Last Chance in Serbia,
which is scheduled to begin in March 2014, with the assistance of Serbian NGOs such as Serbian Code and
the Jasenovac Committee of the Orthodox Church. Operation Last Chance is a campaign to bring remaining
Nazi war criminals to justice by offering financial rewards for information leading to their arrest and
conviction.

Jerusalem – The Simon Wiesenthal Center today harshly criticized the results of a study on Lithuanian participation in Holocaust crimes recently completed by the government-sponsored Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania. In a statement issued here today by its chief Nazi-hunter, Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Center noted two major flaws in the findings of the report as presented by its coordinator Dr. Alfredas Ruksenas, in a report published by the Lithuanian news portal www.delfi.lt on October 25, 2013.

According to Zuroff:
"The findings of the report, as presented by the coordinator of this project, are clearly part of a systematic attempt by the Lithuanian government to minimize the role of ethnic Lithuanians in the mass murder of Jews during the Holocaust. Based on the records in our archives, I can unequivocally state, that the figure of 2,055 Lithuanians whose direct and indirect participation in Holocaust crimes was confirmed by this study, is a gross underestimate of the number of Lithuanians complicit in Shoa crimes, designed to deflect blame from local collaborators and hide the extensive scope of Lithuanian involvement in the mass murder of Jews, both in Lithuania and outside her borders.
"Also highly objectionable is the assertion by Dr. Ruskenas that those Lithuanians who indeed murdered Jews really had no choice but to do so, having received orders to commit murder from their superiors. Besides the fact that in many cases, these superiors were themselves Lithuanians, such arguments have been consistently and unequivocally rejected by courts all over the world, starting with the Nuremberg Trials."

Wiesenthal Center Welcomes Decision of German Prosecution Office to Pursue Charges Against Thirty Former Auschwitz Guards

Jerusalem – The Simon Wiesenthal Center expressed deep satisfaction at the announcement today by officials of the German Central Prosecution Office (Zentrale Stelle) that it would pursue the cases of thirty former guards at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, who are currently living in Germany. In a statement issued here today by its chief Nazi-hunter, Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Center praised the initiative, which was launched in the wake of the conviction in Munich in 2011 of armed SS Sobibor death camp guard Ivan Demjanjuk, while expressing regret that such legal reasoning had not been previously applied in such cases for many years.

According to Zuroff:
"Today's announcement marks an important milestone in the efforts to bring Nazi war criminals to justice in the Federal Republic, and the Central Prosecution Office deserves full credit for this important initiative. At the same time, today's positive development underscores the failure to take such measures during the past five decades, a decision which allowed thousands of the worst hands-on killers to elude justice."

ON 70TH ANNIVERSARY OF MURDER OF DANISH ANTI-NAZI NEWSPAPER EDITOR HENRIK CLEMMENSEN, WIESENTHAL CENTER URGES GERMAN JUDICIAL AUTHORITIES TO TAKE LEGAL ACTION AGAINST HIS KILLER, SOEREN KAM, CURRENTLY RESIDING IN KEMPTEN, BAVARIA

Jerusalem-The Simon Wiesenthal Center has called upon the German judicial authorities to find a way to bring to justice Kempten, Bavaria resident Soeren Kam, who murdered Danisn anti-Nazi editor Henrik Clemmensen in cold blood exactly seventy years ago today in Copenhagen. In a statement issued here today by its chief Nazi-hunter, Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Center noted that despite repeated Danish requests for Kam's extradition to face charges in Copenhagen, the former SS-Obersturmfuehrer, who was honored by Hitler personally in March 1945, remains unpunished for his crimes in Kempten, protected by the Bavarian High Court decision which mischaracterized Clemmensen's killing as "manslaughter" rather than murder.

According to Zuroff:

"The fact that Kam, a totally unrepentant Nazi murderer, continues to enjoy the protection of the Bavarian legal system, is an absolute travesty of justice. The fact that such a person was granted German citizenship based on his service in the SS, which helped him avoid extradition to Denmark for decades, is clear evidence that something is wrong with the handling of this case. His continued residence in Kempten unpunished for his crimes, sends the worst possible message about the importance of holding Nazi war criminals accountable for their heinous deeds."

Zuroff also noted that a new book published this week by Danish journalist Erik Hogh-Sorenson, entitled The Clemmensen Murder and the Story of Soeren Kam [in Danish], reveals that Kam was assisted in his legal defence by the notorious German Nazi war criminal help network Stille Hilfe headed by SS-Reichfuhrer Heinrich Himmler's daughter Gudrun Burwitz, and that he is a regular participant in gatherings of veteran Nazis.

"It therefore should be abundantly clear," he added, "that it is high time that Mr.Kam, who is listed as number 6 on the Wiesenthal Center' Most Wanted List, should be sent to end his life in a Danish or German jail, and no longer enjoy the comforts of his Bavarian home."

Wiesenthal Center Welcomes Indictment of Hungarian Nazi War Criminal Laszlo Csatary for World War II Crimes

Jerusalem – The Simon Wiesenthal Center welcomed the indictment today of former Kosice (today Slovakia, during World War II under Hungarian occupation) senior police officer and ghetto commandant Laszlo Csatary in Budapest this morning. In a statement issued here today by its chief Nazi-hunter, Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff, who located Csatary in Budapest and submitted his whereabouts to the Hungarian authorities in fall 2011, the Center noted the importance of bringing Csatary to justice. The former Kosice ghetto commander played a key role in the deportation of approximately 15,700 Jews to the Auschwitz death camp, where the majority were murdered.
According to Zuroff:
"The indictment of Csatary, who was discovered in the framework of the Center's "Operation Last Chance" project, which offers rewards for information leading to the discovery of Nazi war criminals, is an important reminder that justice for the victims of the Holocaust can still be achieved. It is also a significant milestone for Hungary as the country struggles with its history during World War II, and sends an important message that people like Csatary are criminals rather than patriotic heroes. The Center urges the Hungarian authorities to expedite the trial in view of the defendant's advanced age."

WIESENTHAL CENTER CALLS UPON LITHUANIAN AUTHORITIES TO BAN NEO-NAZI MARCHES TO MARK INDEPENDENCE DAY SCHEDULED FOR TOMORROW IN KAUNAS AND ON MARCH 11 IN VILNIUS

Vilnius-The Simon Wiesenthal Center today called upon the Lithuanian authorities to ban the neo-Nazi marches scheduled to take place tomorrow (February 16) in Kaunas and on March 11 in Vilnius to mark Lithuanian independence day. At a press conference hosted here today by the Center's chief Nazi-hunter, Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff, together with leading Vilnius activist Prof. Dovid Katz.www.defendinghistory.com) , the two presented the case for banning the marches which since 2008, when initially held, have blatantly incited against the country's minorities, and especially against the small local Jewish community. Zuroff presented a historical survey of the rise in anti-Semitism following Lithuania's acceptance into the European Union and NATO, which was followed by its failure to punish any of the numerous unprosecuted local Nazi war criminals tried in Lithuanian courts, and a campaign to put on trial several Jewish anti-Nazi Soviet partisans on trumped up charges of war crimes. Since 2008, the Lithuanian authorities have led the efforts to promote the canard of historical equivalency between Communist and Nazi crimes and have glorified various nationalists who actively participated in the persecution of Lithuanian Jewry during the Holocaust, all of which help explain the resurgence of fascist ideology and extremist nationalism as manifested in the marches.

According to Zuroff:

"The best way to combat the resurgence of right-wing nationalist extremism in Lithuania is to honestly confront the country's Holocaust history, which includes extensive complicity of local Nazi collaborators in the mass murder of Lithuanian Jews and Jews from, and in, other lands as well. The country's failure hereto to accurately and honestly portray the role of all sectors of Lithuanian society in Holocaust crimes, is the background and a key factor in the rise of ultranationalism in Lithuania. Instead of telling the painful truth about Lithuanian crimes, in recent years the government preferred to turn some of the criminals into heroes and downplay the uniqueness of the Holocaust."

Wiesenthal Center 2012 Report Shows Fivefold Increase in Convictions of Nazi War Criminals and More Than One Thousand Ongoing Investigations

Jerusalem – The Simon Wiesenthal Center today released the full text of its eleventh annual report on the worldwide investigation and prosecution of Nazi war criminals which covers the period from April 1, 2011 until March 31, 2012, in conjunction with the observance this coming Sunday, January 27 of International Holocaust Memorial Day. Of particular significance were the following developments:

A fivefold increase in the number of convictions-from two in the previous report to ten (nine in Italy and one in Germany)-which brings the number of successful legal decisions against Nazi war criminals since January 1, 2001 to ninety-nine. The convictions were obtained in seven countries, with Italy (45) and the United States (39) recording the highest totals.

As of April 1, 2012, at least 1,138 investigations were being carried in ten countries against Nazi war criminals, with the largest number being conducted in Germany (528), Poland (458) and the US (74).

Two major trials of unique historical significance were concluded with opposite results. In May 2011, Ivan Demjanjuk was convicted in Germany of accessory to mass murder for his service as an armed SS guard at the Sobibor death camp. His conviction solely on the basis of his service in Sobibor is a legal precedent which significantly increases the likelihood of additional prosecutions of Holocaust perpetrators in the Federal Republic. In July 2011, in the first-ever trial of a local Nazi collaborator in Hungary since the transition to democracy, gendarmerie officer Sandor Kepiro was acquitted of war crimes charges in connection with his role as one of the organizers of the massacre of about 3,300 Serbs, Jews, and Roma in Novi Sad and its environs (occupied Yugoslavia) in January 1942.

The entire report, which includes the grades given to 42 countries vis-à-vis their efforts or lack thereof to help bring Nazi war criminals to justice, is now online at: www.operationlastchance.org

For more information call 00-972-50-721-4156 or in Israel: (050) 721-4156.

WIESNTHAL CENTER DENOUNCES CALL BY ANTI-SEMITIC HUNGARIAN MP FOR REGISTRATION OF JEWISH MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT AND GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS

Jerusalem – The Simon Wiesenthal Center today harshly denounced the call yesterday by Hungarian MP Marton Gyöngyösi, foreign affairs spokesperson for the anti-Semitic and anti-Roma party Jobbik, for the government to create a registry of Jewish members of parliament and government officials because such persons constitute a national security risk.

In a statement issued here today by its chief Nazi-hunter, Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Center condemned the statement by Gyöngyösi as something "sadly reminiscent of the genocidal Nazi regime which murdered hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews with the help of numerous local collaborators."

According to Zuroff:

"The fact that after making such a demand in the Hungarian Parliament Gyöngyösi has not been forced to resign, is a sad commentary on the current rise of anti-Semitism in Hungary, which is being propagated primarily by the Jobbik party, the heirs of the fascist Arrow Cross. Today's condemnation of the statement by the government is welcome, but the total silence yesterday and the fact that the perpetrator of anti-Semitic incitement will apparently pay no price for his demagoguery will only encourage Jobbik to continue their campaigns of hatred against Hungarian Jews and Roma."

Jerusalem-The Simon Wiesenthal Center today harshly condemned the recent unveiling in the city of Bauska, Latvia, of a memorial monument honoring Latvians who served in the Waffen-SS during World War II. In a statement issued here today by its Israel director, Holocaust historian Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Center described the new monument as a gross insult to the memory of the Nazis’ numerous victims in Latvia, many of whom were murdered by Latvians who later served in the Latvian Waffen-SS divisions.

According to Zuroff:
“The initiative in Bauska to honor Latvians who fought for a victory of the Third Reich, the most genocidal regime in history, is in stark contrast to the refusal of the local authorities to facilitate an attempt by Jewish former residents of the city to commemorate the Bauska Jews murdered during the Holocaust. The Wiesenthal Center stands in solidarity with the Latvian Council of Jewish Communities which protested this total failure to correctly distinguish between the victims and perpetrators of World War II to Latvian President Berzins and Minister for Environmental Protection and Regional Development Sprudzis.”

WIESENTHAL
CENTER: WAR CRIMES ACCOUNTABILITY ACT COULD BE IMPORTANT TOOL
TO FORCE UNCOOPERATIVE GOVERNMENTS TO FINALLY TAKE ACTION AGAINST
WAR CRIMINALS

“The
Simon Wiesenthal Center commends Representative Steve Israel
(D-NY) and Representative Harold Berman (D-CA) for introducing
the War Crimes Accountability Act of 2012,” said Rabbi Abraham
Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a leading
Jewish human rights NGO named in honor of the famed Nazi hunter.
“This legislation can serve as an important tool in the pursuit
of justice and a reminder in the final years of the hunt for
Nazi war criminals that there should be no statute of limitations
on mass murder and no safe harbor for Nazi killers,” he continued. †††††† †

“We note that the bill mentions the Center's Operation Last Chance and the important
work by our chief Nazi hunter, Efraim Zuroff,” Cooper said.
“Significantly, this bill provides practical incentive for
countries who have done nothing to deal with Nazi war criminals
in their midst to cooperate in bringing Nazis before the
bar of justice by prohibiting defense sales to countries
that either refuse to deport, prosecute, or enforce an arrest
warrant against a Nazi war criminal,” Cooper said. He also
said that it would also cover war criminals accused by an
international tribunal of planning or abetting crimes against
humanity in the years since the end of World War II.

Cooper
added, “This bill shows that America is telling the world
that the heinous crimes perpetrated by Nazi Germany will
not be forgotten, nor will similar acts today be tolerated.”

"We
are grateful to Congressmen Israel and Berman for their service
to the victims of the Shoah and to all victims of atrocities
who would benefit from this legislation," Rabbi Cooper concluded.

Jerusalem-The
Simon Wiesenthal Center expressed a deep sense of disgust in
response to a “sick attempt at humor” in the most recent issue
of the popular Estonian news weekly Eesti Ekspress.
In a statement issued here today by its chief Nazi-hunter, Israel
director Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Center denounced in the strongest
terms a fake ad which appeared in the “humor pages” of the magazine
with a photograph of concentration camp inmates under the heading:
“One, two, three: Dr. Mengele’s diet pills work miracles on you.
There were no fatties in Buchenwald.”

According to Zuroff:
“It is incomprehensible that a leading and ostensibly-respectable
news weekly in a country which is a member in good standing
in the European Union will publish such a perverted attempt
at humor at the expense of the Nazis’ millions of victims.
Apparently, the editors at Eesti Ekspress were disappointed
that the Estonian gas company Gas Term Eesti had to remove
an ad published less than a month ago, which featured a photo
of the entrance to the Auschwitz death camp to advertise
their gas products. What can one expect in a country which
glorifies its SS veterans and failed to prosecute a single
one of its many Nazi collaborators?”

For more information call 00-972-50-7214156

www.operationlastchance.org www.wiesenthal.com

July
15, 2012

Wiesenthal
Center Submits New Evidence of Crimes by Most Wanted Suspect
Laszlo Csatary and Urges Hungarian Prosecutors to Put the Former
Senior Police Officer on Trial in Budapest

Jerusalem
– The Simon Wiesenthal Center announced today that its chief
Nazi-hunter, Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff, last week submitted
new evidence to the prosecutor in Budapest regarding crimes
committed during World War II by its No. 1 Most Wanted suspect
Laszlo Csatary, who served as a senior Hungarian police officer
in the Slovakian city of Kosice, then under Hungarian rule.
In a statement issued here today, the Center noted that the
evidence submitted by Zuroff to Prosecutor Dr. Gabor Hetenyi
related to Csatary’s key role in the deportation of approximately
300 Jews from Kosice to Kamenetz-Podolsk, Ukraine, where almost
all were murdered in the summer of 1941. At their meeting Zuroff
urged the Hungarian authorities to expedite the ongoing investigation
against Csatary, which was initiated in September 2011 following
his submission of evidence regarding Csatary’s residence in
Budapest and the former police officer’s role in the deportations
of thousands of Jews from Kosice and its environs to the Auschwitz death camp in the spring of 1944.

According to Zuroff, “This new evidence
strengthens the already very strong case against Csatary and
reinforces our insistence that he be held accountable for his
crimes. The passage of time in no way diminishes his guilt
and old age should not afford protection for Holocaust perpetrators.”

Wiesenthal
Center Condemns Decision to Rebury Lithuanian World War II Pro-
Nazi Leader With Full Honors on May 17

Jerusalem
– The Simon Wiesenthal Center today harshly condemned the decision
yesterday by a working group led by Kaunas mayor Andrius Kupčinskas
to bring the remains of Lithuania’s World War II pro-Nazi political
leader Jouzas Ambrazavičius-Brazaitis from the United States
where he died in 1974, for reburial with full honors in Lithuania.
In a statement issued here today by its chief Nazi-hunter,
Holocaust historian Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Center described
the decision as “an absolute outrage which exposes the hypocrisy
of the current Lithuanian government which repeatedly claims
that it takes the subject of Holocaust commemoration seriously.”

According to Zuroff:
“Jouzas Ambrazavičius was the leader of the Lithuanian Activist
Front (LAF), a staunchly pro-Nazi group which collaborated
with the forces of Nazi Germany and openly called upon the
local population to attack Lithuanian Jews. This incitement
to murder was a significant factor in the violence unleashed
by Lithuanians against Jews in more than forty places, even
before the arrival of the German troops and in the horrific
wave of mass murder unleashed with massive local help after
the country was occupied. To honor Ambrazavičius is to besmirch
the memory of the victims of the Holocaust in Lithuania and
make a mockery of Lithuania’s programs of Holocaust commemoration
and education.”

For more information call 00-972-50-7214156

www.operationlastchance.org www.wiesenthal.com

May
3, 2012

WIESENTHAL
CENTER: DECISION BY DUTCH TOWN OF VORDEN TO HONOR NAZI SOLDIERS
ON NATIONAL MEMORIAL DAY TO WORLD WAR II FALLEN ERASES DISTINCTION
BETWEEN VICTIMS AND PEPETRATORS

Jerusalem-The
Simon Wiesenthal Center today harshly criticized the decision
by the municipal authorities of the town of Vorden, Netherlands
to honor 10 German soldiers buried in the town on the National
Day for the fallen of World War II. In a statement issued here
today by its chief Nazi-hunter, Holocaust historian Dr. Efraim
Zuroff, the Center denounced the decision which "blurs the crucial distinction between the victims and the perpetrators of the
crimes of World War II and reflects a lack of understanding
of the history of those tragic years."

According to Zuroff:
"
By honoring the German soldiers who occupied the Netherlands
on behalf of the most murderous regime in human history and
supported the occupation which helped implement the mass murder
of Dutch Jewry, the local authorities of Vorden have basically
rewritten the history of the war, erasing the critical distinction
between victims and perpetrators. Such a decision is which
is apparently based on the erroneous assumption that forgiveness
automatically leads to reconciliation, ignores the horrific
nature of the Nazi regime and is an insult to its victims. "

Wiesenthal
Center Annual Report Points to Importance of Demjanjuk Conviction
as Precedent for the Prosecution in Germany of Additional Nazi
War Criminals; Three New Names on Center’s Latest Most Wanted
List

Jerusalem
- The Simon Wiesenthal Center today released the initial findings
of its eleventh Annual Status Report on the Worldwide Investigation
and Prosecution of Nazi War Criminals, which covers the period
from April 1, 2011 until March 31, 2012 and awarded grades
ranging from A (highest) to F to evaluate the efforts and results
achieved by more than three dozen countries which were either
the site of Nazi crimes or admitted Holocaust perpetrators
after World War II.

Among the report’s highlights are the following important developments:

1. The most important positive result
in a specific case during the period under review was the conviction
in Germany in May 2011 of Ivan Demjanjuk for his service as
an armed SS guard at the Sobibor death camp in Poland, where
approximately 250,000 Jews were murdered from mid-May 1942
to October 14, 1943. Demjanjuk’s conviction set a very important
precedent, as it was the first time in German legal history
that a Nazi war criminal was convicted without any evidence
of a specific crime with a specific victim. The Demjanjuk conviction
paves the way, at least in theory, for the prosecution in Germany
of any person who served in a death camp or in the Einsatzgruppen
(mobile killing units). This decision prompted the Wiesenthal
Center to launch Operation Last Chance II which offers a reward
of up to 25,000 euros for information leading to the prosecution
and punishment of these criminals.

2. Three new names appear on the on the Center’s latest “Most
Wanted” list, starting with number one – Hungarian Laszlo Csatary
who as police chief of Kosice (Hungarian-occupied Slovakia)
played an important role in the deportation of 15,700 Jews
to Auschwitz in the spring of 1944. The others are Vladimir
Katriuk (#4), who served as a platoon commander in a Ukrainian
Security Police battalion which carried out the mass murder
of numerous civilians in Belarus, and Helmut Oberlander who
served with Einsatzkommando 10a (part of Einsatzgruppe D) which
carried out the mass murder of Jews in southern Ukraine. Both
are currently living in Canada. These names replace Sandor
Kepiro (#1), Milivoj Asner (#2) and Adam Nagorny (#5) who died
during the past year.

3. The most disappointing result in a specific case during
the period under review was the acquittal in Budapest on July
18, 2011 of gendarmerie officer Dr. Sandor Kepiro, who was
among the officers who organized the mass murder of about 3,300
civilian in the Serbian city of Novi Sad and its vicinity in
late January 1942. Judge Bela Varga who ruled in the case claimed
that Kepiro was not innocent, but that the prosecution had
failed to sufficiently prove his guilt. Kepiro died while the
case was being appealed by the prosecution.
4. The lack of political will to bring Nazis war criminals
to justice and/or to punish them continues to be the major
obstacle to achieving justice, particularly in post-Communist
Eastern Europe. The campaign led by the Baltic countries to
distort the history of the Holocaust and obtain official recognition
that the crimes of the Communists are equal to those of the
Nazis is another major obstacle to the prosecution of those
responsible for the crimes of the Shoa.
The author of the report, Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff,
who coordinates the Center’s research on Nazi war criminals
worldwide, noted that the statistics in the report clearly
show that a significant measure of justice can still be achieved
against Nazi war criminals. “During the past eleven years,
at least ninety convictions against Nazi war criminals have
been obtained, at least seventy-nine new indictments have been
filed, and well over three thousand new investigations have
been initiated. Despite the somewhat prevalent assumption that
it is too late to bring Nazi murderers to justice, the figures
clearly prove otherwise, and we are trying to ensure that at
least several of these criminals will to be brought to trial
during the coming years. While it is generally assumed that
it is the age of the suspects that is the biggest obstacle
to prosecution, in many cases it is the lack of political will,
more than anything else, that has hindered the efforts to bring
Holocaust perpetrators to justice, along with
the mistaken notion that it was impossible at this point to
locate, identify, and convict these criminals. The success
achieved by dedicated prosecution agencies, especially in the
United States, Italy and Germany, should be a catalyst for
governments all over the world to make a serious effort to
maximize justice while it can still be obtained.”

Zuroff went on to explain that the Report’s purpose was to
focus public attention on the issue and thereby “encourage
all the governments involved to maximize their efforts to ensure
that as many as possible of the unprosecuted Holocaust perpetrators
will be held accountable for their crimes. In that respect,
we seek to highlight both the positive results achieved during
the period under review by countries such as Germany, as well
as the failures of countries like Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia
and the Ukraine which have consistently failed to hold any
Holocaust perpetrators accountable, primarily due to a lack
of the requisite political will, as well as Sweden and Norway
which in principle refuses to investigate, let alone prosecute,
due to a statue of limitations.”

Jerusalem-The
Simon Wiesenthal Center today noted the passing of former Sobiboir
death camp guard Ivan Demjanjuk in Germany at age 91, while
awaiting an appeal of his conviction for accessory to murder
for the deaths of the Sobibor inmates murdered while he served
at the infamous Nazi death camp from March to September 1943.
In a statement issued today by its chief Nazi-hunter, Israel
director Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Center noted that the length
of the Demjanjuk case, which began in the United States in
the late seventies and continued initially in Israel and later
back in the US and then in Germany, unfortunately might have
raised some doubt as his role during World War II, but there
was never any doubt as far as the Center was concerned, that
Demjanjuk had been an active participant in the implementation
of the "Final Solution," the Nazis' plan to annihilate European Jewry.

According to Zuroff:
"
Ivan Demjanjuk died guilty of his service in the Sobibor death
camp and that is how he should be remembered, not as a person
falsely accused, but as an individual who volunteered to serve
in the SS, and who at the height of his physical powers spent
months helping to mass murder innocent Jews deported to that
death camp. Justice was unfortunately delayed in this case, and
hindered by complicating factors, but was ultimately achieved
to the credit of the prosecutors in the US and Germany who handled
the case."

For more information call 00-972-50-7214156

www.operationlastchance.org www.wiesenthal.com

18.3.2012

WIESENTHAL
ISRAEL DIRECTOR JOINS DEMONSTRATORS AGAINST MARCH OF
WAFFEN-SS VETERANS AND SUPPORTERS IN RIGA

Riga-The
Simon Wiesenthal Center's chief Nazi-hunter, Israel director
Dr. Efraim Zuroff, travelled to Riga to join demonstrators
against a march of Latvian Waffen-SS veterans and their supporters
which took place yesterday in the Latvian capital. In a statement
issued here today following the demonstration which was attended
by about 100 protestors, among them residents of Riga and guests
who especially arrived from Israel, Britain, Lithuania, Germany
and Austria, the Center noted the importance of the protest
against the glorification of people who fought alongside the
most genocidal regime in human history.
According to Zuroff:
"
It is a terrible tragedy that many Latvians view those who fought
with the Nazis as patriotic freedom fighters. It is important
to remember that although the Latvian SS Legion was not involved
in the crimes of the Holocaust (by the time it was established
almost all of Latvian Jewry had already been murdered), many
of those who served in the unit, had actively participated in
Holocaust crimes as members of the Latvian Security Police, and
it would therefore be unthinkable to honor these men. It is also
important to note that the claim that these men were fighting
for Latvian independence is a total myth, since the Nazis had
absolutely no intention to grant Latvia independence and it is
only because the Third Reich was defeated that an independent
Latvia ultimately was created in 1991."
Dr. Zuroff was among the demonstrators who laid a wreath to commemorate
the victims of the Holocaust at the Freedom Monument, the destination
of the march, prior to the arrival of the SS veterans and their
supporters. After the wreath was laid, a large poster of the
emblem of the Latvian SS units was put in front of the wreath
to cover it up.

Jerusalem-The
Simon Wiesenthal Center today strongly condemned a neo-Nazi
march held late last week in the city center of Kaunas (Kovno),
Lithuania’s second-largest city and its interwar capital. In
a statement issued here today by its chief Nazi-hunter, Israel
director Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Center called the demonstration
“a disgraceful way to observe Lithuanian Independence Day,”
and harshly criticized the public support of the march by five
Lithuanian members of parliament, and the total absence of
any public criticism by Lithuanian elected leaders or officials
or foreign ambassadors.

According to Zuroff:
“A march of several hundred primarily young people wearing
white armbands with Lithuanian swastikas and other fascist
symbols sends chills down the spines of the small remnant
of Kaunas’ once-thriving Jewish community which was totally
decimated during the Holocaust.
“The deafening silence of Lithuania’s leaders will only encourage
additional such marches and we anticipate that the march scheduled
for Sunday, March 11 in the capital of Vilnius will be much
larger given the tacit acceptance of these demonstrations by
the government and the total lack of response by the European
Union and international community.”

Full
Text of 2011 Wiesenthal Center Annual Report on Worldwide Investigation
and Prosecution of Nazi War Criminals Now Available Online

Jerusalem
– The Simon Wiesenthal Center today released the full text
of its 2011 Annual Status Report on the worldwide investigation
and prosecution of Nazi war criminals which covers the period
from April 1, 2010 until March 31, 2011. The report is now
available on the home page of the website: www.operationlastchance.org

For more information call 00-972-50-7214156

www.operationlastchance.org www.wiesenthal.com

January
23, 2012

Wiesenthal
Center Israel Director Stresses Crucial Role of Memory in Light
of Flawed Verdict in Kepiro Case at Novi Sad Memorial
to Mark 70th Anniversary OF JANUARY 1942 Massacre

Novi
Sad, Serbia-The Simon Wiesenthal Center's chief Nazi-hunter,
Israel director, Dr. Efraim Zuroff, stressed the role of memory
in assuring that the crimes of he Holocaust would not be erased
or forgotten in his remarks at the memorial ceremony held here
today to mark the 70th anniversary of the mass murder by Hungarian
forces of Jewish, Serb, and Roma civilians in this Serbian
city on January 23, 1942. Zuroff stressed that the recent acquittal
in July 2011 in Budapest of Hungarian gendarmerie officer Sandor
Kepiro, who was one of the organizers of the massacre, and
his subsequent burial as a heroic patriot, threatened to erase
ths terrible crime and absolve the killers of their guilt.

Dr. Zuroff's speech deliverd today to
a crowd of hundrerds in Novi Sad:

Today we mark the 70th anniversary of the horrific crimes committed
by the Hungarian army and gendamerie on the banks of the Danube,
not far from where we are currently standing. Those crimes
were the
product of politics and prejudice, an opportunistic alliance
between Hungary and Nazi Germany and the racism, anti-Semitism,
and
extremism of the Third Reich and its allies.

Seventy years is ostensibly a very long time, for many people an
entire lifetime if not more, and there are those who would
prefer
that such terrible and tragic events be forgotten. Even worse,
there are those who justify such crimes and consider their
perpetrators heroes. Not long ago, Sandor Kepiro, one of
these so-
called Hungarian "heroes" died
while his case was being appealed in
Budapest, a case in which he was charged for his active role
in the
roundup of innocent citizens of Novi Sad-Jews, Serbs, and
Roma//men, women, and children, who were marched to the river
to be
murdered. He claimed that his assignment was to search for
terrorists, dangerous people like 10 year old Lydia Brenners,
9
year old Dorothea Pintar, and 6 year old Arthur Rosenthal.

Kepiro's funeral was attended by many
people who believed that he
did his duty and was a true Hungarian patriot, some of whom
even
came wearing the same gendarmerie uniform Kepiro wore, when
he did
his share to doom innocent people to death, the same uniforms
worn
by the Hungarian gendarmes, who two years later organized
the
deportation of the Jews of Novi Sad to Auschwitz. Indeed
heroes and
patriots.
There are two acceptable responses to the terrible crimes
committed
seventy years ago-justice and memory. But justice, as we
saw last
July in the Buda District Court, can be severely flawed.
Judge
Varga admitted that Sandor Kepiro was not innocent, but after
he
outrageously disqualified all the documents and testimony
against
him, he decreed that the prosecution had failed to prove
his guilt.

So that leaves us with memory, which
is why our presence here
united is so critical. And it is from here, so close to the
site of
the murders, that we must declare loud and clear that no
flawed and
politicized verdict can change the facts and the guilt of
the
perpetrators, nor can it erase the memory of the victims
which will
remain in our hearts forever.

Jerusalem
– The Simon Wiesenthal Center today responded with dismay and
consternation to a communication from EU Ambassador to Afghanistan
Vygaudas Ušackes to its chief Nazi-hunter, Israel director
Dr. Efraim Zuroff, following his criticism of an op-ed by Ušackes
in the Wall Street Journal in which the ambassador referred
to the Nazi occupation of Lithuania as “a few years’ respite
from the Communists.” In a statement issued here today, the
Center noted that rather than rectifying his grossly insensitive
remark about the Holocaust, Ambassador Ušackes has again insulted
its victims, especially those murdered in his homeland.

According to Zuroff:

“All Ambassador Ušackes was expected
to do was to admit that his original comment was inappropriate
and apologize for his lack of sensitivity to the fate of
Lithuanian Jewry during the Holocaust. Instead, he chose
to defend his callous indifference to the murder of some
212,000 Lithuanian Jews during the Nazi occupation, by complaining
about the imbalance in public opinion between “Nazi crimes
which have been universally condemned by all civilized humanity,”
and “the crimes of Stalin’s regime…and the tragedy of its
victims,” which only received recognition more recently,
as if this justifies ignoring the Holocaust. And while he
did condemn Holocaust crimes in general, he did not say a
word about those committed by Lithuanian Nazi collaborators.

“Ušackes’ reluctance to honestly deal
with his country’s bloody Holocaust past raises serious doubts
about his ability to properly represent the European Union.”

Jerusalem
– The Simon Wiesenthal Center today denounced the recent (December
28) memorial mass conducted in Zagreb in honor of Ustasha leader
Ante Pavelić, who as head of state of the Independent State
of Croatia (NDH) bears direct responsibility for the mass murder
of hundreds of thousands of Serbs, tens of thousands of Jews,
and numerous Roma. In a statement issued here today by its
chief Nazi-hunter, Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Center
called the ceremony “a grievous insult to the memory of Pavelić’s
numerous victims and a mockery of the horrific crimes of the
Ustasha.”

According to Zuroff:
“This ceremony, which had previously been stopped by church
authorities in the wake of protests by the Wiesenthal Center and others,
is a disgrace to the local Catholic Church and incomprehensible in
a country about to enter the European Union. We call upon the Croatian
authorities to ban such ceremonies in the future and urge the religious
leaders responsible for Vjekoslav Lasić and Stanislav Kos, the priests
who performed the mass, to defrock them for conducting a ceremony which
made a total mockery of Christian values.”

Jerusalem
– The Simon Wiesenthal Center today called upon EU Ambassador
to Afghanistan, Lithuania’s former Foreign Minister Vygaudas
Ušackas, to apologize or retract his grossly insensitive comments
regarding the Nazi occupation of his country in his December
2011 op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. In an article entitled
“My Long, Strange Journey to Afghanistan,” Ušackas categorized
the Nazi occupation of Lithuania (1941-1944) during which over
96% of the country’s Jewish community was murdered, in many
cases by Lithuanian Nazi collaborators, as “a respite from
the Communists while the Nazis were in control.” In a statement
issued here today by its Israel director, Holocaust historian
Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Center termed the comment “a grave insult
to the victims of the Holocaust and especially to those murdered
in Lithuania.”

According to Zuroff:

“It is incomprehensible that an individual
who represents the European Union can refer to the mass annihilation
of Lithuanian Jewry in such grossly insensitive terms, which
fail to reflect the historical reality of that period. We urge
Ambassador Ušachas to apologize and retract his statement and
call upon the European Union to take appropriate measures should
he refuse to do so.”

For more information call 00-972-50-7214156

www.operationlastchance.org www.wiesenthal.com

December
14, 2011

WIESENTHAL
CENTER LAUNCHES "OPERATION LAST CHANCE II" TO MAXIMIZE PROSECUTION OF DEATH CAMP PERSONNEL AND MEMBERS OF MOBILE KILLING
SQUADS

Berlin
-The Simon Wiesenthal Center today launched "Operation Last Chance II," a project which will focus on the men who served in Nazi death camps and the
Einsatzgruppen (special mobile killing units), at a press conference
held at the Bundestag press lobby here today. Modeled after
its original "Operation Last Chance" project started in 2002, which focused primarily on Eastern Europe, the current
initiative, which is supported by the "Targum Shlishi Foundation" of Miami headed by Aryeh Rubin, is offering financial rewards of up to 25,000
euros for information which will lead to the prosecution and
punishment of Nazi war criminals. The Center's chief Nazi-hunter,
Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff, who conceived and directs
the new project, explained that the May 2011 conviction in
Munich of Sobibor death camp guard Ivan Demjanjuk, who is the
first person to be convicted in Germany without evidence of
a specific crime with a specific victim, paves the way for
the successful prosecution in Germany of any person who served
in one of the death camps or the Einsatzgruppen. Also participating
in the press conference were: MP Dietmar Nietan, former MP
Gert Weisskirchen, and activist against anti-Semitism Joerg
Rensmann.
According to Zuroff:
"
The Demjanjuk conviction at long last enables the prosecution
of individuals who were active participants in the mass murder
of Jews on practically a daily basis for extended periods of
time, but hereto for legal reasons could not be prosecuted for
their crimes. This travesty of justice can now be corrected,
but we are in a race against time to find the individuals still
alive and expedite their prosecution. My estimate is that there
are at least several dozen such cases which can still be brought
to trial and we want to do whatever we can to help the German
legal authorities bring these Holocaust perpetrators to justice."

Zuroff explained that the rewards will be given to the persons
who give the information in the following manner:
5,000 euros upon indictment of the suspect;
5,000 euros upon his or her conviction;
100 euros a day for the first 150 days of imprisonment, for
a total of an additional 15,000 euros. Total=25,000 euros.

The Center's hotline for information is
in Germany: (01573) 494-7307
For those those calling from
outside Germany: 49-1573-494-7307

WIESENTHAL
CENTER TO GERMAN AUTHORITIES:INVESTIGATION OF NEO-NAZI TERROR
SHOULD INCLUDE POSSIBLE COVER-UP OF HOLOCAUST CRIMES

Jerusalem/Muenster-The
Simon Wiesenthal Center today called upon the German authorities
to investigate the possibility that the same officials who
either colluded with neo-Nazi terrorists or purposely ignored
their criminal activities also conspired to prevent the prosecution
of Nazi war criminals. In a statement issued today by its chief
Nazi-hunter, Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff, and its chief
researcher in Germany Dr. Stefan Klemp, the Center noted that
unlike the situation in most of the other Laender, where numerous
Nazi war criminals have been and/or are currently under investigation,
in recent years there have no investigations whatsoever of
Holocaust perpetrators in Thuringia.

According to Zuroff and Klemp:
"
In the light of this week's revelations, we cannot totally
discount the possibility that the same officials who colluded
and/or turned a blind eye to neo-Nazi activity in Thuringia
helped made sure that no Nazi war criminals would be investigated,
let alone prosecuted. The urgent investigation into the serious
crimes committed by the neo-Nazis should therefore also seriously
consider the possibility that their activities included efforts
to shield their ideological predecessors from the recently
increasingly successful efforts in Germany to bring Nazi war
criminals to justice."

Jerusalem-The
Simon Wiesenthal Center today criticized Estonia’s failure
to prosecute local Nazi collaborator Mikhail Gorshkow, whose
case was closed yesterday by the Estonian authorities without
any legal action taken. In a statement issued here by its chief
Nazi-hunter, Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Center
termed the decision as “typical of the total failure since
independence of the Estonian authorities to hold local Holocaust
perpetrators accountable for their crimes.”

According to Zuroff:
“Estonia’s refusal to prosecute Gorshkow is only the latest in a series
of failures to bring Estonian Nazi collaborators to justice. Starting
with Evald Mikson, who was defended by the Estonian Foreign Ministry
despite his heinous crimes, and continuing with Harry Mannil, who was
Mikson’s subordinate in the Political Police, Estonia has failed time
after time to hold its Holocaust perpetrators accountable. One can
only wonder why a person convicted in the United States suddenly has
his identity questioned in Estonia?”

Jerusalem-The
Simon Wiesenthal Center today criticized Estonia’s failure
to prosecute local Nazi collaborator Mikhail Gorshkow, whose
case was closed yesterday by the Estonian authorities without
any legal action taken. In a statement issued here by its chief
Nazi-hunter, Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Center
termed the decision as “typical of the total failure since
independence of the Estonian authorities to hold local Holocaust
perpetrators accountable for their crimes.”

According to Zuroff:
“Estonia’s refusal to prosecute Gorshkow is only the latest in a series
of failures to bring Estonian Nazi collaborators to justice. Starting
with Evald Mikson, who was defended by the Estonian Foreign Ministry
despite his heinous crimes, and continuing with Harry Mannil, who was
Mikson’s subordinate in the Political Police, Estonia has failed time
after time to hold its Holocaust perpetrators accountable. One can
only wonder why a person convicted in the United States suddenly has
his identity questioned in Estonia?”

Jerusalem-The
Simon Wiesenthal Center today praised the recent decision of
Yad Vashem to rescind its original invitation to Lithuanian
Ambassador to Israel Darius Degutis and visiting Minister of
Culture Arunas Gelunas to participate in tomorrow’s annual
memorial assembly to commemorate the Jews murdered in Lithuania
during the Holocaust. The decision was made in the wake of
the refusal of Yosef Melamed, Chairman of the Association of
Lithuanian Jews in Israel, to attend the event in the light
of a recent attempt by the Lithuanian government to prosecute
him for “libeling”
so-called “Lithuanian heroes,” whom he exposed as participants
in Holocaust crimes. In a statement issued here today by its
chief Nazi-hunter, Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Center
noted the significance of Yad Vashem’s decision in the context
of the ongoing battle being waged against the Lithuanian government’s
energetic efforts to hide and/or minimize the active complicity
of Lithuanians in the mass murder of Jews, as well as its promotion
of the Prague Declaration which seeks to establish a historically-false
equivalency between Holocaust and Communist crimes.

According to Zuroff:
“Yad Vashem, which serves as the primary custodian of Shoa
remembrance and the key guardian of the accuracy of the Jewish
narrative of Holocaust history, is to be commended for fulfilling
its historic function in a very courageous manner. Its decision
is a crucial blow against the ongoing efforts of the Lithuanian
government to distort the history of the Shoa in Lithuania
and the role played by local Nazi collaborators in the mass
murder of local and foreign Jews in Lithuania, as well as
Jews in Belarus and Poland.”

The
Hague, Netherlands-The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s chief Nazi-hunter,
Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff, met here yesterday with
the leaders of the four largest parties in the Dutch Parliament
to enlist their active support in the Center’s campaign to
get Germany to take legal action against escaped convicted
Dutch SS-executioner Klaas Carel Faber, who is currently living
unpunished in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, having fled a Dutch prison,
where he was serving a life sentence for the murder of dozens
of resistance members, Jews, and those helping to hide Jews.
Zuroff, along with local investigative journalist Arnold Karskens,
who heads the Dutch Foundation for War Crimes Research and
has played a major role in the Faber case, met here with Step
Blok of the Liberal Party, Gert Wilders of the Freedom Party, Emile Roemer of the Social Democrats, and Jolande Sap
of the Greens to urge increased pressure on Germany to either
extradite Faber back to Holland to serve his sentence or incarcerate
him in a German prison.

According to Zuroff:
“The unanimous support of all Dutch political parties for increased pressure
on Germany to successfully resolve the Faber case was heartening, but
must be turned into effective political and judicial action as quickly
as possible. We also called upon the MP’s to help gain access to pertinent
legal records regarding Faber’s crimes which inexplicably continue
to be closed to researchers in Holland and which are likely to reveal
important details on additional crimes he committed, which can considerably
strengthen the case against him.”

Jerusalem-The
Simon Wiesenthal Center tonight expressed it sense of deep
frustration upon learning of the death in Budapest yesterday
morning of accused, and previously convicted, Hungarian Nazi
war criminal Dr.(of law) Sandor Kepiro, who was charged this
year by Hungarian prosecutors with responsibilty for the murder
of at least 36 persons during a massacre carried out by Hungarian
forces in the Serbian city of Novi Sad on January 23, 1942.
Last month a judge ruled in a Budapest court that while Kepiro
was not innocent, the Hungarian prosecutors had failed to convincingly
prove his guilt, but appeals had been launched by both the
prosecution and the defense, and it was likely that they would
be heard within the next few weeks. In a statement issued here
tonight by its chief Nazi-hunter, Israel director, Dr. Efraim
Zuroff, who discovered Kepiro and led the efforts to convince
the Hungarian authorities to bring him to trial, the Center
noted that it was likely that Kepiro's initial acquittal would
have been overturned upon appeal and expressed its deep disappointment that his death prevented
his conviction and punishment.

According to Zuroff:
"
Kepiro's acquittal last month was not only a terrible travesty
of justice which insulted the memory of the victims of the
mass murder carried out by the Hungarian forces, and encouraged
those who seek to deny Hungarian participation in Holocaust
crimes, but also was in direct contradiction to voluminous
historical and judicial evidence collected over the years,
most of which was the basis for his original conviction in
a Hungarian court in January 1944. Thus it is a fair assumption
that the acquittal could well have been overturned on appeal,
and Kepiro would have been once again convicted for his role
in the Novi Sad mass murder. His death has unfortunately prevented
such a decision, which would not only have focused attention
on the active role of Hungarian Nazi collaborators in the mass
murder of innocent civilians, primarily Jews, during World
War II, but also would have ensured that the criminal responsibilty
of one of the officers who was an active participant in these
crimes would have been confirmed, for
the first time ever, since democracy in a Hungarian court of
law."

For more information call 00-972-50-7214156

www.operationlastchance.org www.wiesenthal.com

July
18, 2011

WIESENTHAL
CENTER: ACQUITTAL OF KAPIRO IS AN OUTRAGEOUS
MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE WHICH INSULTS THE MEMORY OF THE
1,246 VICTIMS OF THE NOVI SAD MASSACRE

Budapest
– the Simon Wiesenthal Center described the acquittal here
today of former Hungarian Gendarmerie officer Sandor Kepiro
as an outrageous miscarriage of justice which directly contradicts
the extensive evidences of Kepiro’s direct involvement and
responsibility in the January 23, 1942 massacre of at least
1,246 innocent residences of the Serbian city of Novi Sad.
In a statement issued here today by its chief Nazi hunter Israel director
Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Center noted that Kepiro had already been convicted
in 1944 and 1946 in connection with his role in the massacre (although
not for war crimes) and that the verdict would be appealed.

According to Zuroff: ”today’s verdict
is an insult to the memory of the Novi Sad massacre and a
sad day for Hungarian society. A judicial decision which
brings joy to the ultra nationalists of Hungary and pain
to the victims of fascist crimes is inherently flawed and
the Center will do whatever he can to help to change it as
quickly as possible.”

WIESENTHAL
CENTER TO LITHUANIAN AUTHORITIES: DESECRATION OF PONAR MEMORIAL
TO SHOA VICTIMS IS DIRECTLY RELATED TO GOVERNMENT EFFORTS TO
MINIMIZE LOCAL COMPLICITY IN HOLOCAUST CRIMES

Jerusalem-The
Simon Wiesenthal Center today harshly criticized the Lithuanian
government for trying to hide or minimize the highly-significant
role of local Nazi collaborators in Holocaust crimes and attributed
last weekend’s desecration of the memorial at Ponar, the site
of the mass murder of 70,000 Jews during the Holocaust, to
the falsification of World War II history by local historians
with governmental sponsorship and support. In a statement issued
here today by its chief Nazi-hunter, Israel director Dr. Efraim
Zuroff, the Center pointed to the denial at a recent international
conference sponsored by the government at the Seimas [Lithuanian
Parliament] of the lethal violence launched by Lithuanians
against Jews in at least 40 different locations before the
arrival of Nazi troops, as an example of the continuing efforts by the authorities to try and
conceal the active participation by Lithuanians in the mass
murder of Jews during World War II.

According to Zuroff:
“The ongoing government-sponsored and financed distortion, minimization,
and downplaying of the critical role played by Lithuanian Nazi collaborators
in Holocaust crimes has created an anti-Semitic atmosphere in which
slogans such as “Hitler was right,” which was scrawled on the Ponar
memorial, seem natural. After all, if as was claimed at the recent
historical conference held at the Seimas, Jewish historians such as
eminent Hebrew University professor Dov Levin purposely lied about
the scope of Lithuanian criminality during the Shoa, such desecrations
of Holocaust memorials become almost understandable. The time has come
for the European Union to make clear to the Lithuanian authorities
that membership obligates them to refrain from distorting the history
of World War II for political reasons and to stop the resultant incitement
against the local Jewish community

For more information call 00-972-50-7214156

www.operationlastchance.org www.wiesenthal.com

July 8, 2011

WIESENTHAL CENTER: “CELEBRATION” TODAY BY UNION OF ESTONIAN SOLDIERS OF ANNIVERSARY OF NAZI INVASION IS DISTORTION OF EUROPEAN HISTORY AND PAINFUL AFFRONT TO ESTONIAN HOLOCAUST VICTIMS

Jerusalem-The Simon Wiesenthal Center harshly criticized a memorial service held today in the Estonian city of Viljandi by the “Union of Estonian Soldiers” to mark the 70th anniversary of the Nazi invasion of their country, which according to the organizers, who were quoted in the Estonian newspaper Sakala, made “Estonians’ situation…normal again.” In a statement issued here by its Israel director, Holocaust historian Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Center termed the statement “a malicious revision of the sad reality of Estonian history, in which one occupation was replaced by another, and a heartless affront to the memory of the Estonian Jews murdered by the Nazis and their local collaborators.” The Center expressed solidarity with the Estonian Jewish community, which spoke out against the event, and called upon Estonian political leaders to publically denounce the initiative and make sure that no public funds were spent on this hatefest,

According to Zuroff:

“If the leaders of the ‘Union of Estonian Soldiers’ believe that the mass murder of innocent Jews is “a normal situation,” they belong in jail or in a mental asylum. If anything, the Nazi invasion of Estonia marked the beginning of an assault on all Jewish residents of the country, as well as others identified as enemies of the Third Reich, who were mercilessly hunted down and murdered. It is extremely important, that Estonian leaders make clear that such ideology has no place in democratic Estonia and that any such initiative will never enjoy any government support.”

For more information call 00-972-50-7214156

www.operationlastchance.org www.wiesenthal.com

June
22, 2011

Wiesenthal
Center: On Seventieth Anniversary of Nazi Invasion, “Lithuanian
Activist Front” Should Be Denounced, Not Glorified

Jerusalem
– The Simon Wiesenthal Center today called upon the Lithuanian
authorities to refrain from honoring the “Lithuanian Activist
Front” which sought to reestablish Lithuanian independence
following the Nazi invasion of the country launched seventy
years ago on June 22, 1941. In a statement issued here today
by its Israel director, Holocaust historian Dr. Efraim Zuroff,
the Center noted the vicious incitement against the Jews of
Lithuania by the Lithuanian Activist Front prior to the invasion
and their appeal for Lithuanians to take measures on their
own against Jews considered suspect of betraying the country.
These calls, it should be noted, led to widespread physical
violence which claimed the lives of at least hundreds of Jews
by local vigilantes, before the arrival of the Nazis in at least forty different locations.

According to Zuroff:

“Any attempt to glorify the Lithuanian
Activist Front is not a tribute to Lithuanian patriotism,
but rather a ringing endorsement of the mass murder of Lithuanian
Jewry and a horrific insult to the numerous victims of the
Holocaust murdered by Lithuanians. The seventieth anniversary
of the Nazi invasion should be an occasion for repentance
and reflection on the role of Lithuanians in Holocaust crimes,
and a day to honor those brave Lithuanians who risked their
lives to save their Jewish neighbors. They were the true
Lithuanian patriots, not the anti-Semites of the Lithuanian
Activist Front .”

For more information call 00-972-50-7214156

www.operationlastchance.org www.wiesenthal.com

June 20, 2011

Response by Dr. Efraim Zuroff, Chief Nazi Hunter of the Simon Wiesenthal Center to Recent Death of Croatian Nazi war criminal Milivoj Ašner in Austria

“The recent death of Milivoj Ašner in Austria unprosecuted for his crimes, is a travesty of justice which reinforces the total failure of the Austrian judicial authorities to adequately deal with the issue of Nazi war criminals during the past more than three decades.

Ašner’s role in the persecution and death of hundreds of Serb, Jewish, and Roma residents of the city of Požega, Croatia in his capacity as local Ustasha police chief was critical and his criminal responsibility for their tragic fate is absolutely clear.

To Croatia’s credit they act for his extradition from Austria in 2005 but Ašner was able to escape justice due to faulty handling of his case by the Austrian authorities, who instead of doing everything possible to bring him to justice allowed sympathetic doctors to prevent his prosecution by declaring him unfit for trial although he gave numerous media interviews in which he described his past in a very lucid manner.

“On this occasion it is important to reiterate the critical role of political will in bringing Holocaust perpetrators to justice and to call upon all the countries who face this issue to make an urgent final effort to bring these murderers to justice before it is too late to do so.”

Budapest-Judge
Viktor Vadasz of the District Court of Pest this afternoon
acquitted the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s chief Nazi-hunter Israel
director Dr. Efraim Zuroff of libel charges filed against him
by accused Hungarian Nazi war criminal Dr. Sandor Kepiro, whom
Zuroff exposed in 2006 and who will be facing criminal charges
in a Budapest court this coming Thursday, May 5. In his verdict
Judge Vadasz noted that Zuroff had acted in good faith by first
contacting the Hungarian prosecutors after discovering that
Kepiro had returned to Hungary from Argentina, before notifying
the media.
According to Zuroff:
Needless to say, I am relieved to have been acquitted, but the most important
issue is Kepiro’s guilt which will be hopefully established by a criminal
court in his trial which begins Thursday morning. This has been a long
and frustrating process, which began in the summer of 2006, but I am
hopeful that justice will finally be achieved. That is what the victims
of the massacre in Novi Sad deserve and that is what I have been fighting
for from the very beginning of this process.

Jerusalem-The
Simon Wiesenthal Center has labeled a neo-Nazi march of approximately
1,000 participants held this past Jerusalem-The Simon Wiesenthal
Center today strongly condemned a proposal submitted by the
family of Latvian mass murderer Herberts Cukurs to bury their
father’s remains in the “Brothers’ Cemetery” in Riga, the site
of the burial of Latvia’s most important heroes. In a statement
issued here by its Israel director, Holocaust historian Dr.
Efraim Zuroff, the Center denounced the proposal as an attempt
to absolve one of the biggest Latvian Nazi war criminals of
his horrific crimes, which is an unforgivable insult to the
memory of all the victims of the Holocaust and an affront to
all Latvians with any sense of honesty and morality.

According to Zuroff:
“Hrebert Cukurs was the deputy commander of the notorious “Arajs Kommando,”
which actively participated in the mass murder of tens of thousands
of Latvian and foreign Jews in Riga and the provinces, as well as in
Belarus. Cukurs was a zealous volunteer for the Nazi cause and its
program of the annihilation of all the ostensible enemies of the Third
Reich. Numerous testimonies in the Yad Vashem Archives document Cukurs’
crimes and the fact that he personally murdered numerous Jewish men,
women, and children. The fact that he was never prosecuted in a court
of law is no proof whatsoever of his innocence; unfortunately many
of the biggest Holocaust perpetrators were able to escape justice.
The burial of his remains in the “Brothers’ Cemetery” will be an eternal
badge of shame for Latvia.”

For more information call 00-972-50-7214156

www.operationlastchance.org www.wiesenthal.com

April
12, 2011

WIESENTHAL
CENTER CALLS FOR PROMPT ACTION TO APPREHEND AND PROSECUTE PERPETRATORS
OF YESTERDAY’S ATTACK ON KAUNAS, LITHUANIA SITE OF HOLOCAUST
MASS MURDER

Jerusalem-The
Simon Wiesenthal Center today called upon the Lithuanian authorities
to make every possible effort to apprehend and punish the individuals
who last night vandalized the site of the “Ninth Fort,” one
of the most important sites of Holocaust mass murder in general,
and in Lithuania, in particular. In a statement issued here
today by its chief Nazi-hunter, Israel director Dr. Efraim
Zuroff, the Center expressed grave pain and indignation that
a place which currently commemorates, and during World War
II had been the site of, such horrific Holocaust crimes in
which tens of thousands of Jews were murdered by the Nazis
and Lithuanian collaborators, was vandalized with swastikas
and inscriptions calling for the expulsion of Jews, and memorial
plaques were forcibly removed from their places.

According to Zuroff:
“The disgusting desecration of one of the most important sites
of the mass murder of Lithuanian Jewry is a clear message
of implacable hatred for the Jews living in Lithuania and
a insult to the memory of the innocent Jewish victims brutally
annihilated by the German and Austrian Nazis and their Lithuanian
helpers, who carried out most of the killing at this site
of infamy. It is high time that Lithuanian students and children
will be taught the truth about the role of their countrymen
in the mass murder of Lithuanian Jewry and many thousands
of Jews outside the country, and that the government stop
trying to minimize local collaboration with the Nazis and
promote the canard of equivalency between Communist and Holocaust
crimes.”

Jerusalem
– The Simon Wiesenthal Center today harshly criticized the
dismissal of the case against
Holocaust denier Petras Stankeras and the failure of the Lithuanian prosecutors
to publicize the decision. In a statement issued in Jerusalem by its
chief Nazi-hunter Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Center noted
the constant failure since independence of the Lithuanian judiciary to
punish Lithuanians who commit crimes related to the Holocaust.

According to Zuroff:
“While the crimes of Holocaust denial is not comparable to the terrible
Holocaust war crimes committed by Liliekis, Gimzauskas and Dailide,
the Lithuanian judiciary has once again demonstrated its total inability
to punish locals who commit crimes related to the annihilation of European
Jewry. I have no doubt that a Lithuanian who committed Communist crimes
or tried to deny them would never be treated with such leniency. Perhaps
those accused of Holocaust crimes have to be prosecuted elsewhere?”

Background: The November 16 issue
of the popular news weekly Veidas published an article by
Interior Ministry specialist Petras Stankeras in which he
called the Holocaust a "legend." The Wiesenthal Center called for his prosecution under a Lithuanian law which
makes the denial of Holocaust crimes a criminal offence.
An investigation was initiated against him, but we recently
learned that no charges had been filed against him, and Stankeras,
who had resigned from his post under pressure from the Center
and seven European ambassadors who had also protested against
his denial of the Shoa, had applied to be reinstated to his
original job.

For more information call 00-972-50-7214156

www.operationlastchance.org www.wiesenthal.com

February
17, 2011

WIESENTHAL
CENTER CRITICIZES DECISION OF VILNIUS MUNICIPALITY TO APPROVE
NEO-NAZI MARCH IN CENTER OF LITHUANIAN CAPITAL

Jerusalem-The
Simon Wiesenthal Center today harshly criticized the decision
of the Vilnius Municipality to permit a march by local neo-Nazis
and ultranationalists through the center of the Lithuanian
capital this coming March 11, to mark the restoration in 1990
of Lithuanian independence. In a statement issued here by its
chief Nazi-hunter, Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Center
noted the racist, anti-Semitic, and xenophobic slogans and
signs of the participants in last year’s march on the same
day, and called upon the local authorities to change their
misguided decision.

According to Zuroff:

“Freedom of speech does not include the right to incite hatred
of Lithuania’s minorities and foreigners. The fact that racist
and anti-Semitic slogans could be shouted with impunity on
the main avenue of a capital of a member state of the European
Union is incomprehensible. One of the primary factors for
the rise of ultranationalist sentiments in Lithuania has
been the abysmal failure of successive governments to teach
the truth about the extensive complicity of Lithuanians in
Holocaust crimes and to punish local Nazi war criminals.
Had the truth been admitted, there would be virtually no
support in Lithuanian society for racism and anti-Semitism,
but instead the government is spending hundreds of thousands
of euros on falsifying the history of the Holocaust in Lithuania
and seeking support for the lie that Communist crimes were
just as terrible as those of the Nazis.”

Jerusalem-The
Simon Wiesenthal Center today expressed its deep satisfaction
that the number one suspect on its list of most wanted Nazi
war criminals, former Hungarian gendarmerie officer Dr. Sandor
Kepiro, was officially charged with war crimes today in Budapest
in connection with his role in the mass murders of hundreds
of innocent civilians carried out by Hungarian military and
gendarmerie forces in the area of the Serbian city of Novi
Sad in late January 1942. In a statement issued here today
by its chief Nazi-hunter, Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff,
who tracked down Kepiro and in August 2006 informed the Hungarian
justice authorities that he was residing in Budapest, the Center
noted the significance of theindictment and its importance
for the victims of Kepiro’s crimes and their families, as well
as for Hungarian and Serbian society.

According to Zuroff:
“My thoughts today are with the people of Novi Sad and their
families, the victims of the mass murders carried out by the Hungarian
forces in January 1942. It is they who so deserve that justice finally
be achieved in this case, so that they can finally achieve a measure
of closure, even if it is many years after the crimes. The indictment
of Kepiro also sends a powerful message that the passage of time does
not diminish the guilt of the killers and that old age should not protect
those who committed such heinous crimes. For the past more than four
years, I have waited for this news and now we finally can see the light
at the end of the tunnel.”

For more information call 00-972-50-7214156

www.operationlastchance.org www.wiesenthal.com

January
31, 2011

WIESENTHAL
CENTER CALLS UPON GERMANY TO OPEN SECRET SERVICE FILES ON NAZI
WAR CRIMINALS AND BRING HERETO “PROTECTED” HOLOCAUST PERPETRATORS
FABER AND KAM TO JUSTICE

Jerusalem-The
Simon Wiesenthal Center called upon the German authorities
to make a final effort to bring to justice two convicted but
unpunished Nazi war criminals living in Germany and to open
the files of the BND (German Secret Service) regarding the
postwar escape of notorious Holocaust perpetrators. In an op-ed
piece published today in the important German daily Sűddeutsche
Zeitung, the Center’s chief Nazi-hunter Israel director Dr.
Efraim Zuroff noted the recent revelations which indicate that
the BND knew of the whereabouts of arch Nazi criminal Adolf
Eichmann long before his capture in Argentina by Israeli Mossad
agents, as proof of the significance of the files to which
access has hereto been blocked. In addition, he emphasized
the unresolved cases of Dutch Nazi SS executioner Klaas Carl Faber (living in Ingolstadt, Bavaria) and Danish SS officer
Soern Kam (Kempten, Bavaria), both of whom were convicted in
their countries of origin for murder, but have hereto eluded
justice after escaping to Germany and being granted German
citizenship.

According to Zuroff:

The visit to Israel today by Prime Minister Merkel and members
of the Cabinet
is an excellent opportunity to thank Germany for its improved record in bring
Nazi war criminals to justice, but also to point to two important issues which
require the attention of the German government. We very much hope that Faber
and Kam, both of whom committed hands-on murder in the service of the Nazis,
will not escape punishment and that the critical files on the postwar escape
of major Nazi war criminals will finally be opened to historians and researchers.

For more information call 00-972-50-7214156

www.operationlastchance.org www.wiesenthal.com

January
14, 2011

Germany
awarded highest grade for first time ever in Wiesenthal center
2010 annual report on investigation and prosecution of Nazi war
criminals

WIESENTHAL
CENTER CALLS UPON GERMAN AUTHORITIES TO OPEN THE FILES OF ESCAPED
NAZI WAR CRIMINALS

Jerusalem-The
Simon Wiesenthal Center today called upon the German Security
Service (BND) to open its files on escaped Nazi war criminals
in the wake of recent revelations that the German authorities
already knew of the whereabouts in Argentina of Adolf Eichmann
in 1952, eight years before he was abducted by the Mossad to
stand trial in Israel for his critical role in the implementation
of the Final Solution. In a statement issued here by its chief
Nazi-hunter, Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Center
noted the importance of such information, which clearly shows
the utter indifference of the German authorities at that time
to the necessity of bringing such key Holocaust perpetrators
to justice.

According to Zuroff:
“The time has come to reveal the truth about the efforts, or lack thereof,
of Germany to apprehend and bring to trial the individuals responsible
for the mass murder of European Jewry and millions of other innocent
victims. There is important historical research which must be done
on this topic, but which cannot proceed without the opening of the
pertinent archives. We call upon the BND to finally grant full access
to its records and to allow the full story, as problematic as it might
be, to be made known to the public. The Nazis’victims, as well as the
rest of the world , deserve no less.”

WIESENTHAL
CENTER PRAISES AUSTRALIAN HOME AFFAIRS MINISTER O’CONNER FOR
APPEALING THE DECISION WHICH WOULD HAVE PREVENTED THE EXTRADITION
TO HUNGARY OF ACCUSED NAZI COLLABORATOR CHARLES ZENTAI

Jerusalem-The
Simon Wiesenthal Center today praised Australian Minister for
Home Affairs Brendan O”Conner for appealing the recent decision
by a Perth court which would have prevented the extradition
to Hungary of suspected Nazi war criminal Charles Zentai, who
has been accused of murdering an 18 year old Jewish boy named
Peter Balazs, whom he caught on a Budapest streetcar without
the yellow star required of all Jews. In a statement issued
here today by its chief Nazi-hunter, Israel director Dr. Efraim
Zuroff, the Center praised the perseverance of the Australian
and Hungarian authorities in this case and noted that the decision
reinforces the important principle that the passage of time
in no way diminishes the guilt of Holocaust perpetrators.

According to Zuroff:
“Minister O’Conner has wisely not been persuaded by the disinformation
campaign launched on behalf of Mr. Zentai by his family and supporters
who are determined to prevent him from facing justice. There is an
abundance of evidence which points unequivocally to Zentai’s active
participation in the murder of Peter Balazs, which originally convinced
the Hungarian government to initially seek his extradition in the late
forties. Rather than regarding Zentai as a frail pensioner, he should
be considered as a person who at the time of his physical prime devoted
all his strength and energy to the persecution of innocent Jews.”

For more information call 00-972-50-7214156

www.operationlastchance.org www.wiesenthal.com

December
22, 2010

Wiesenthal
Center Praises Decision by European Commission to Reject Double-Genocide
Law As Milestone in Critical Struggle Against the Rewriting of
the History of the Holocaust

Jerusalem
– The Simon Wiesenthal Center today praised the rejection by
the European Commission of a call by the foreign ministers
of Lithuania, Latvia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and the Czech
Republic to introduce a “double-genocide law” which would make
the denial of Communist crimes a criminal offense.
In a statement issued today by its Israel Director, Holocaust historian
Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Center welcomed the decision as an important milestone
in the critical struggle against attempts by post-Communist countries
to rewrite the history of World War II and the Holocaust.

According to Zuroff:
“Today’s decision marks the first concrete step taken by the European
Union to oppose the ongoing recent campaign by the post-Communist countries
of Eastern Europe which seeks to promote the canards that the crimes
of Communism are equivalent to those of the Nazis, and that the Soviet
Union is equally responsible with Nazi Germany for the atrocities of
World War II and the Holocaust. Rewriting the history of that tragic
period in this manner, which also seeks to minimize the important role
played by East Eastern local Nazi collaborators in the Holocaust, will
not honor the memory of the victims of Communism, but will only shame
those supporting this misguided initiative.”

Budapest-The
Simon Wiesenthal Center welcomed today’s decision by the District
Court of Pest [Budapest] to reject a libel suit launched by
convicted but unpunished Hungarian Nazi war criminal Dr. Sandor
Kepiro against its chief Nazi-hunter, Israel Director Dr. Efraim
Zuroff, in the wake of Kepiro’s failure to appear at a hearing
scheduled for this morning. In a statement issued today by
Zuroff, the Center expressed its satisfaction that this “diversionary
tactic” by Kepiro and his legal team had been disposed of,
but emphasized that the key issue-Kepiro’s role in helping
to organize and carry the mass murder of at least 1,250 innocent
residents of the Serbian city of Novi Sad on January 23, 1942-still
remained to be dealt with.

According to Zuroff:
“While I am naturally relieved that this legal harassment by Kepiro has
been rejected by the court, the real issue of Kepiro’s guilt has still
not been addressed properly by the Hungarian prosecutors who have been
investigating his case for over three and a half years. Given the fact
that Kepiro was convicted by a Hungarian court in 1944 in relation to
the massacre in Novi Sad and the extremely strong evidence available
regarding his role in the arrests and roundups of numerous residents
of the city who were murdered by the Hungarian forces on January 23,
1942, Kepiro should have been brought to justice long ago. In view of
the fact that Kepiro was already 92 years old when I initially submitted
the information regarding his residence in Budapest to the prosecutors
on August 1, 2006,
it is particularly unfortunate that his case was not expedited by the
Hungarian authorities. We therefore urge the prosecutors in Budapest
to do everything possible to finally bring this Holocaust perpetrator
to justice.”

For more information call 00-972-50-7214156

www.operationlastchance.org www.wiesenthal.com

December
10, ‏2010

WIESENTHAL
CENTER URGES HUNGARIAN AND AUSTRALIAN AUTHORITIES TO APPEAL DECISION
AGAINST EXTRADITION OF CHARLES ZENTAI TO HUNGARY

Jerusalem-The
Simon Wiesenthal Center announced today that it would continue
its efforts to press for the extradition to Hungary of Charles
Zentai for his role in the November 8, 1944 murder of 18 year
old Peter Balazs, a young Jew whom he is accused of murdering,
after catching him without the yellow star on a Budapest streetcar.

In a statement issued here today by
its chief Nazi-hunter, Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff,
in the wake of today’s proceeding in Perth in which the same
judge who accepted Zentai’s appeal against his extradition
ordered the government to pay his court costs, the Center
indicated that it was determined to continue its efforts
to bring the accused to justice.

According to Zuroff:
“The Center will do its utmost to help achieve justice in this case.
I am in contact with Hungarian Justice Minister Tibor Navracsics, who
was indicated that there is no statute of limitations on such crimes
and that the request for Zentai’s extradition remains in force. During
my visit next week to Budapest, I will continue to pursue this matter
with the relevant local officials in order to facilitate justice. The
Balazs family, Hungarian society, and all persons of morality and conscience
deserve no less.”

For more information call 00-972-50-7214156

www.operationlastchance.org www.wiesenthal.com

November
25, 2010

Wiesenthal
Center Calls for Prosecution of Senior Lithuanian Ministry of
Interior Specialist Who Denied the Holocaust;
Zuroff: Government-Sponsored Holocaust Distortion Paves the Way for Denial

Jerusalem
– The Simon Wiesenthal Center today called upon the Lithuanian
government to prosecute Lithuanian Ministry of the Interior
senior specialist Petras Stankeras, who called the Holocaust
a “legend” and denied the murder of six million Jews in an
article he published in the November 14 issue of the news weekly
Veidas. In a statement issued here by its Israel director,
Holocaust historian Dr. Efraim Zuroff , the Center welcomed
Stankeras’ resignation today, but noted that Holocaust denial
is a criminal offense in Lithuania and urged the implementation
of the law in this case for the first time ever.

According to Zuroff:

“As shocking as the article by Stankeras
was, it is hardly surprising to see Holocaust denial in a
popular mainstream publication, in a country in which the
government itself is actively promoting Holocaust distortion
by seeking to gain recognition that Communist crimes are
equivalent to those of the Nazis. If we add the abysmal failure
to punish a single Lithuanian Holocaust perpetrator and the
tendency to minimize or hide the role of Lithuanians in the
mass murder of Jews, Stankeras’ article is only the tip of
a very dangerous iceberg of lies and distortion.”

For more information call 00-972-50-7214156

www.operationlastchance.org www.wiesenthal.com

25
November 2010

Wiesenthal
Center Urges Germany to Accede to Dutch European Arrest Warrant
for Escaped Nazi Executioner Klaas Faber Living in Bavaria

Jerusalem
– The Simon Wiesenthal Center today called upon the German
authorities to accede to a Dutch European arrest warrant issued
yesterday for the incarceration of escaped Dutch SS-executioner
Klaas Faber, currently residing in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, who
is currently third on the Center’s list of “Most Wanted” Nazi
war criminals. In a statement issued today by its chief Nazi-hunter,
Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Center noted that Faber,
who was convicted in Holland for his role in the murder of
22 persons after the war, escaped in 1952 to Germany, which
has hereto rejected Dutch extradition requests, since Faber
was the beneficiary of the infamous “Fuhrer directive” of 1943
which granted automatic German citizenship to foreign Nazi
collaborators.

According to Zuroff:

“We welcome this step by the Dutch
government and urge the German authorities to arrest Faber
immediately so that the can finally serve his well-deserved
punishment. The fact that this murderer of so many innocent
people has been protected by Germany for so many decades
is a travesty and sends a message that even those convicted
of multiple murders can escape justice. Faber’s victims,
their families, and Dutch and German society deserve that
he finally be punished for his crimes.”

Wiesenthal
Center: Kunz’s Death Unprosecuted is Result of Decades-Long Refusal
to Prosecute Non-Officers

JJerusalem
– The Simon Wiesenthal Center today issued a statement in response
to the death near Bonn of former Belzec death camp guard Samuel
Kunz, who was indicted and awaiting trial for his role in the
mass murder committed at the camp. The Center’s chief Nazi-hunter,
Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff, expressed the deep frustration
of having justice thwarted shortly before Kunz was scheduled
to be brought to trial.

According to Zuroff:

“The fact that Samuel Kunz lived in
Germany unprosecuted for so many decades is the result of
a flawed prosecution policy which ignored virtually any Holocaust
perpetrator who was not an officer. It was only the recent,
long-awaited change in this policy which led to Kunz’s indictment
and the opportunity to hold him accountable for his crimes.
We urge the German authorities to expedite all such cases,
given the advanced age of the suspects, so that a measure
of justice can still be achieved.”

Jerusalem-
A defamation suit launched last year by Hungarian Nazi collaborator
Dr. Sandor Kepiro against the Simon Wiesenthal Center's chief
Nazi-hunter, Israel Director Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the person
who discovered and exposed the former gendarmerie officer,
who played an important role in the January 23, 1942 mass murder
of at least some 1,250 civilians in the Serbian city of Novi
Sad, will open tomorrow, Friday, October 8, at the Budapest
district court. Zuroff discovered Kepiro living in the Hungarian
capital after almost half a century in exile in Argentina and
has spearheaded the efforts to hold him accountable for his
role in helping to organize a massacre of Jewish, Serb and
Roma residents of the city of Novi Sad in January 1942. All
the officers implicated in the massacre were put on trial in Budapest in late 1943 and convicted in early 1944, but
following the Nazi invasion of Hungary, their sentences were
cancelled and they were given promotions and returned to active
service, without any of them being punished.

In February 2007, the Hungarian prosecution initiated an investigation
of Kepiro's role in the Novi Sad massacre, based on documentation submitted
by Zuroff, but no decision has been made yet on whether he will be put
on trial.According to Zuroff, the failure to date of the Hungarian judicial
authorities to punish Kepiro for his role in the heinous crimes committed
by the Hungarian forces in Novi Sad should be the main issue and not
the truthful allegations levelled by the Wiesenthal Center against Kepiro. "Nothing
could be more absurd than my being in the docket in Budapest, while a
notorious Hungarian Nazi collaborator remains a free man in the Hungarian
capital."

Jerusalem
– The Simon Wiesenthal Center today welcomed the support of
Israeli Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman who this week urged
his German counterpart Sabine Leutheusser – Schnarrenberger
to find a way to take action in the case of escaped convicted
Dutch Nazi war criminals Klaas Carel Faber, currently residing
in Ingolstadt, Bavaria.

Since his escape to Germany in 1952 from
a Dutch jail, where he was serving a life sentence for his
alleged role in the murder of at least 11 civilians, Faber
has been spared extradition to Holland and punishment in Germany
due to legal technicalities. In a statement issued here today,
the Center’s chief Nazi-hunter, Israel director Dr. Efraim
Zuroff called upon the Bavarian judicial authorities to review
the case and refrain from granting Faber judicial protection
on the grounds that he was not an officer.

According to Zuroff:

“As clearly demonstrated by the recent
conviction in Aachen of Dutch SS-executioner Heinrich Boere
and the indictments of Sobibor death camp guard Ivan Demjanjuk
in Munich and Belzec death camp guard Samuel Kunz in Dortmund,
German prosecutors no longer consider “superior orders” a legitimate
defense in Holocaust crimes. It is high time that Faber as
well will be held accountable for his role in the murder of
innocent civilians.”

Jerusalem-The
Simon Wiesenthal Center today sharply criticized comments made
by Lithuanian Foreign Minister Andronius Ažubalis late last
week at a meeting of the parliamentary faction of the Homeland
Union and Christian Democratic parties. In a presentation regarding
proposed legislation which would permit individuals of Lithuanian
origin living elsewhere to obtain Lithuanian citizenship in
addition to their current citizenship, the Foreign Minister
claimed that the bill was being promoted primarily by “Jews
who seek citizenship to press compensation claims against the
state.” In a statement issued today in Jerusalem by its Israel
director Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Center categorized Ažubalis’
remarks as “unabashedly anti-Semitic and totally divorced from
reality.”

According to Zuroff:
“The Foreign Minister’s outrageous comments expose the insidious duplicity
of Lithuania’s attitude toward foreign Jews of Lithuanian origin. On
the one hand, the government recently announced its intention to establish
a “Litvak Forum” to enlist the support and assistance of overseas Jews,
yet at the same time, one of its leading ministers openly expresses
his disdain for the same people. The Center therefore fully supports
the stance of Lithuania’s brave local Jewish community, which has openly
demanded an apology from Minister Ažubalis, whose comments ‘sow discord
between Lithuanians and Jews.’”

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one
of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations
with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It
is an NGO at international agencies including the United
Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe
and the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino).

Jerusalem-A
petition signed by 150 local lawyers calling upon the Israeli
government to urge Germany to take legal action against convicted
Nazi SS executioner Klaas Faber, who is currently residing
unpunished for his crimes in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, was submitted
late yesterday to the office of Israeli Justice Minister Yaakov
Ne’eman. The petition, which was initiated and organized by
Advocate David Schonberg, expressed the lawyers’ sense of outrage
that Faber, who was sentenced to death in Holland for a string
of murders he carried out in the service of the SS but who
escaped to Germany in 1952, has been living unprosecuted and
unpunished in Germany for decades, despite several requests
from the Dutch government for his extradition to serve his
sentence, which had been commuted in the late 40’s to life
imprisonment. The petition was submitted in support of the
ongoing efforts of the Simon Wiesenthal Center to bring Faber
to justice, and to enlist the active support of the Israeli
government in this case. It also calls for the Israeli government to urge Germany to cancel any existing laws,
such as the infamous “Fuhrer befehl”, which granted German
citizenship to local non-German Nazi collaborators and protected
them from extradition to their countries of origin to face
prosecution and/or punishment.
According to Advocate Schonberg: “The protection that German
law accords this convicted war criminal, enabling him to live
untroubled in Germany is an affront to law and human values,
and by its belittling of the enormity of the holocaust’s crimes,
provides a harmful message to modern society. We expect our government
to take a more active role in the efforts to bring Nazi war criminals
to justice and this is exactly the type of case where Israel’s
involvement can prove of critical assistance”.
The Wiesenthal Center’s chief Nazi-hunter Dr. Efraim Zuroff welcomed
the initiative and added that “Germany’s failure hereto to put
Faber on trial or return him to Holland are a travesty which
must be corrected as quickly as possible, while justice can still
be achieved.” The petition also has the support of the Center
of Organizations of Holocaust survivors and Yad Vashem.

For
more information call 00-972-50-7214156 (Zuroff) or 02-624-2458
( Schonberg)

Jerusalem-The
Simon Wiesenthal Center today expressed its frustration and
disappointment in the wake of the death earlier this week in
Hannover of former Nazi police battalion commander Erich Steidtmann,
who led several police battalions which actively participated
in the mass murder of numerous Jews in eastern Europe, before
he could be prosecuted for his crimes. In a statement issued
here today by its chief Nazi-hunter, Israel director Dr. Efraim
Zuroff, the Center noted that Steidtmann’s death unprosecuted
reflected a decades-long failure by the German judicial authorities
in his case, which was opened as early as the sixties, but
was closed then for lack of evidence.

According to Zuroff:
“It was only thanks to research by the Wiesenthal Center’s
Dr. Stefan Klemp and the Sueddeutsche Zeitung Magazine that
the case against Steidtmann was reopened, but unfortunately
it will never come to court nor will Steidtmann ever be punished.
Had the prosecutors done their job properly in the sixties,
he would not have escaped justice, but at least he did not
die in peace and tranquility.”

For more information call 00-972-50-7214156

www.operationlastchance.org www.wiesenthal.com

July
19, 2010

Wiesenthal
Center Calls for Boycott of Newly-Formed “Litvak Forum”

Jerusalem
– The Simon Wiesenthal Center today called upon Jews of Lithuanian
descent (Litvaks”) the world over to boycott a new initiative
announced late last week by Lithuanian Prime Ministry Andrius
Kubilius to create a “Litvak heritage forum.” In a statement
issued in Jerusalem by its chief Nazi-hunter, Israel director
Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Center accused the Lithuanian government
of trying to enlist Jewish support for its ongoing campaigns
of Holocaust distortion and promoting a false equivalency between
Communist and Nazi crimes.

According to Zuroff:
“The creation of a new “Litvak Forum” is merely the latest in a long
line of Lithuanian governmental initiatives to promote a false narrative
of the events of World War II, which minimizes the extensive role of
local Nazi collaborators in the mass murder of Jews and promotes the
canard that Communist crimes were equivalent to those of the Nazis.
Such an initiative is the equivalent of forming an Armenian support
group for Turkish efforts to deny the Armenian genocide.

“The Center will continue its efforts
to thwart Lithuanian Holocaust distortion and is already
in contact with the “Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel,”
the world’s largest Litvak organization to ensure the failure
of the latest governmental tactic to hide the truth about
the Holocaust in Lithuania and to prevent naïve Litvaks from
helping destroy their own historical legacy.”

For more information call 00-972-50-7214156

www.operationlastchance.org www.wiesenthal.com

July
2, 2010

WIESENTHAL
CENTER:DECISION TO STOP EXTRADITION OF ZENTAI TO HUNGARY UNDERSCORES
TOTAL FAILURE OF AUSTRALIA TO TAKE LEGAL ACTION AGAINST LOCAL
NAZI WAR CRIMINALS

Jerusalem-The
Simon Wiesenthal Center today strongly criticized a decision
by a judge in Perth, Australia to reject a request submitted
by the Hungarian government in 2005 for the extradition of
Charles (Karoly) Zentai in connection with his role in the
murder of Peter Balazs, an 18 year-old Jewish boy whom he caught
in Budapest without the yellow star required by the local fascist
authorities. In a statement issued by its chief Nazi-hunter,
Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Center emphasized the
insufferable delays of the legal process in the wake of bogus
technical challenges mounted by Zentai’s lawyers and noted
that the failure to extradite Zentai means that Australia is
the only major Western democracy, to which at least hundreds
of Nazi war criminals emigrated after World War II, which has
failed to take successful legal action against a single one
of them.

According to Zuroff:
“Today is a very sad day for Australia, Australian justice,
and especially for the Balazs family and for people seeking
justice for the victims of the Holocaust. If anything, the
Zentai case shows a lack of understanding by the Australian
judicial system of the urgency and importance of bringing
suspected Holocaust criminals to justice. Contrary to today’s
decision, Zentai’s age is totally irrelevant (no country
in the world limits prosecution based solely on age) and
the notion that he would be treated harshly in Hungary, a
member in good standing of the European Union and NATO is
ludicrous. We urge the Hungarian and Australian authorities
to take all possible measures to overturn today’s unfortunate
decision.”

For more information call 00-972-50-7214156

www.operationlastchance.org www.wiesenthal.com

July
1, 2010

WIESENTHAL
CENTER PRAISES LATVIAN LEADERS’ CRITICISM OF MARCH TO MARK NAZI
OCCUPATION OF RIGA BUT WARNS OF DIRE CONSEQUENCES OF UNPRECEDENTED
GLORIFICATION OF NAZI REGIME IN LATVIA

Jerusalem-The
Simon Wiesenthal Center praised the public criticism by Latvian
leaders of the march of extremist Latvian nationalists held
today in Riga, but warned that the unprecedented celebration
of the Nazi occupation of the city, held today in the middle
of the Latvian capital, would have dire consequences unless
a legal means were found to prevent such events in the future.
In a statement issued here today by its Israel director, Holocaust
historian and chief Nazi-hunter Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Center
noted the unequivocal denunciation of the march by President
Valdis Zatlers, as well as the criticism voiced by Prime Minister
Dombrovskis and Foreign Minister Ronis, and urged the Latvian
leaders to find legal means to prevent such demonstrations
in the future. He emphasized, however, that such events did
not occur in a vacuum and that Latvia’s failure since independence
to prosecute Nazi war criminals, its attempts to glorify the
members of the Latvian SS battalions which fought for a victory
of the Nazi Germany, and its reluctance to fully acknowledge the scope and role of local
Nazi collaborators in the mass murder of Jews explain why such
an unprecedented event was taking place in Latvia.

According to Zuroff:
“Unfortunately, there is far too much local sympathy for Latvians
who committed the crimes of the Holocaust as long as they
fought against the Soviets. The only way to eradicate this
distorted perception of Latvian history is to tell the whole
truth about the critical role played by Latvians in the mass
murder of Jews and other victims of the Nazis, and to stop
trying to create false historical symmetries between Nazism
and Communism. Legal measures to stop the glorification of
Nazi Germany are important, but the best long-term solution
is truth in history education.”

For more information call 00-972-50-7214156

www.operationlastchance.org www.wiesenthal.com

June
30, 2010

WIESENTHAL
CENTER PROTESTS DECISION BY RIGA DISTRICT COURT TO ALLOW CELEBRATION
OF OCCUPATION OF RIGA BY NAZI GERMANY

Jerusalem-The
Simon Wiesenthal Center expressed its outrage at today's decision
by a district court in Riga, Latvia to allow an event to "celebrate" the sixty-ninth anniversary of the Nazi occupation of the city at its famous
Freedom Monument in the center of town this coming Thursday,
July 1, 2010.

In a statement issued today in Jerusalem by its Israel Director,
Holocaust historian Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Center strongly
protested the decision which it categorized as "incomprehensible
and totally outrageous," and an insult to all the victims of Nazism and those who fought to save the
world from Nazi totalitarianism.

According to Zuroff:
"
It is inconceivable that a member in good standing in NATO
and the European Union will allow such an event to take place.
To celebrate the anniversary of Nazi invasion of Riga on July
1 is to celebrate the mass murder of all those victimized by
the Nazis in Latvia-primarily Jews but also Communists, Gypsies,
and the mentally-ill. To hold such an event at the Freedom
Monument is an insult to all those who fought for a democratic
Latvia and the exact opposite of what that site is supposed
to represent.

"
We urge saner minds to prevail in Riga to stop this outrage
from taking place and send a clear and unequivocal message
that Latvia will not tolerate a glorification of Nazism, the
scourge of the 20th century."

For more information call 00-972-50-7214156

www.operationlastchance.org www.wiesenthal.com

May
20, 2010

Wiesenthal
Center: Yesterday’s Decision by Lithuanian Court to Allow Swastikas
is Outrageous Insult to Holocaust Survivors and All Anti-Fascists

Jerusalem
– The Simon Wiesenthal Center today issued a strongly-worded
protest against the decision yesterday by a Lithuanian court
in the port city of Klaipeda to regard swastikas as symbols
of Lithuania’s historical heritage rather than of Nazi Germany.
In a statement issued here today by its chief Nazi-hunter,
Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Center called the decision
“outrageous” and likely to lead to a tremendous increase in
the use of Nazi symbols by Lithuania’s ultra-nationalist fascists.

According to Zuroff:

“Such a decision is certain to encourage
Lithuania’s fascists to increase their activity throughout
the country. Allowing the use of swastikas sends a clear
message to those local residents harshly victimized by the
Nazis, that they are no longer welcome in their country of
birth. Once again, Lithuanian judges show their obvious bias
in favor of the perpetrators of Holocaust crimes rather then
their victims. We urge the Lithuanian courts to overturn
this outrageous and contemptible decision as quickly as possible.”

WIESENTHAL
CENTER: TODAY’S CONVICTION OF HEINRICH BOERE
IS PROOF THAT NAZI WAR CRIMINALS
CAN STILL BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE

Jerusalem
– The Simon Wiesenthal Center expressed deep satisfaction in
the wake of the conviction today of Dutch Nazi war criminal
Heinrich Boere in a court in Aachen, Germany. Boere, who served
in the Dutch “Silbertanne” SS murder squad, was sentenced to
life imprisonment for the murder of three Dutch civilians suspected
by the Nazis of hiding Jews and/or helping the resistance.
In a statement issued in Jerusalem, the Center’s chief Nazi-hunter,
Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff, praised the efforts of prosecutor
Ulrich Maas and noted the significance of the trial which proved
that Holocaust perpetrators could still be held accountable
for their crimes.

According to Zuroff:

“The conviction of Boere, who volunteered
to join the SS and openly admitted the crimes he committed
is an important reminder that the overwhelming majority of
the murderers of the Holocaust did so willingly and without
any coercion whatsoever. Despite the passage of decades,
this trial clearly shows that Nazi war criminals can still
be brought to justice if there is political will to do so,
which unfortunately is not the case in most European countries.”

Jerusalem-The chief Nazi-hunter of the
Simon Wiesenthal Center, Holocaust historian
Dr. Efraim Zuroff, responded today to the attack leveled by recently-resigned
Latvian Foreign Minister Maris Reikstins against his comments denouncing
the march of Latvian-SS Legion veterans held last week in the Latvian
capital. In a statement issued here, Zuroff categorized Reikstins’ comments
in which he asserted that all the victims of World War II suffered equally
as “an outrageous revisionist rewriting of history which erases all distinctions
between perpetrator criminals and innocent victims.”

According to Zuroff:
“It is countries like Latvia, which attempt to cover up the complicity
of their nationals in the crimes of the Holocaust, which are seeking
to rewrite European history by creating false symmetries between Communist
and Nazi crimes. The time has come for Latvia and its Baltic neighbors
to stop trying to deflect and/or minimize local participation in the
mass murder of the Jews during World War II and to desist from trying
to equate Communist crimes with the Holocaust. Such efforts are not
only an insult to the Nazis’ victims but dishonor those who suffered
under Communism as well.”

Jerusalem-The
Simon Wiesenthal Center today praised the critical comments
made by Norwegian ambassador to Lithuania Steiner Gil regarding
the failure of Lithuanian leaders and members of parliament
to denounce a neo-Nazi march held earlier this month in the
center of Vilnius. Ambassador Gil spoke at a seminar on “European
and Lithuanian Values: Identical or Different?” held late last
week in the Lithuanian Parliament. In a statement issued here
by its chief Nazi-hunter, Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff,
the Center labeled the march “a horrifying spectacle of hatred,
xenophobia, and anti-Semitism which brings back memories of
dark days in Vilnius.”

According to Zuroff:
“Such neo-Nazi demonstrations have no place in European society, which
suffered unprecedented losses at the hands of the Nazis and their local
collaborators. The fact that no public figure had the courage to speak
out against this manifestation of lack of tolerance is a strong indication
of the weak foundations of Lithuanian democracy. Ambassador Gil’s criticism
should serve as a dire warning to Lithuanian society.”

Riga, Latvia – The Simon Wiesenthal Center
today denounced the march of Latvian Waffen-SS veterans held
this morning in the center of Riga to honor the Latvian SS
legion which fought with the forces of Nazi Germany during
World War II.

In a statement issues in Riga by its chief Nazi hunter, Israel director, Dr.
Efraim Zuroff, who joined the anti-Fascist demonstrators against
the march, the Center protested “the glorification of those
who fought for a victory of the Third Reich, a regime directly
responsible for the murder of tens of millions of innocent
civilians.”

According to Zuroff:

“Today is a very sad day for Latvia and
for the memory of the Holocaust. It is unthinkable that those
who bore arms to help Nazi Germany subjugate Europe, among
them numerous individuals, who actively participated in the
mass murder of tens of thousand of Jews in Latvia and other
countries, should be honored as if they are Latvia’s greatest
heroes. Latvia’s true heroes are people like Janis Lipka and
his wife who risk their life to save Jews from the German,
Austrian, and Latvian Nazi murderers who sought to kill them.”

Zagreb
– The Simon Wiesenthal Center has announced that its Chief
Nazi-hunter, Israel Director Dr. Efraim Zuroff, has been awarded
an official Croatian state decoration by President Mesić in
a ceremony held here today at the presidential residence. According
to the official announcement made by the office of the president,
the Order of Trpimir with Ribbon and Star was conferred on
Zuroff for:

“his outstanding contribution to the fight
against historical revisionism and [the] re-assertion of the
anti-fascist foundation of the modern-day Republic of Croatia
and for the establishment of good relations between the Republic
of Croatia and State of Israel.”

In his acceptance remarks, Zuroff thanked
President Mesić for this courageous leadership in combating
neo-fascism and Ustasha nostalgia in Croatia and noted the
significance of the trial of former Jasenovac commandant Dinko
Sakić, which he referred to as “the most important trial of
a local Nazi collaborator ever conducted in Post-Communist
Europe.” more...

Wiesenthal
Center: Death of Harry Mannil, Unprosecuted Estonian Nazi Collaborator,
Is A Sad Day for Holocaust Justice

Jerusalem
- The Simon Wiesenthal Center today expressed a sense of outrage
and deep frustration in the wake of the death yesterday in
Costa Rica of Harry Mannil, who served with the infamous Estonian
Political Police in Tallinn during the initial year of the
Nazi occupation and actively participated in the arrest and
interrogation of Jews and Communists who were subsequently
murdered by local Nazi collaborators, but was never prosecuted
for his Holocaust crimes.

In a statement issued in Jerusalem by
its chief Nazi-hunter Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the
Center emphasized the failure of the Estonian authorities to
prosecute Mannil (who was listed as Number 10 on its “Most
Wanted List” of Nazi war criminals and as a result of the Center’s
efforts was barred from entering the United States) despite
the findings of their own investigators regarding his activities
in the framework of the dreaded Estonian Political Police,
who were responsible for the arrest and murder of numerous
Jews and Communists.

According to Zuroff:
“The failure of the Estonian authorities to bring Harry Mannil
to trial is a reflection of the lack of political will in
Tallinn to deal with the collaboration of Estonians in Holocaust
crimes and a sad commentary on how an individual who was
an embarrassment to his country bought immunity and respectability
with financial payments.”